Issues
by Victim of Me
Summary: Six years after the fall of Beacon; Ruby became a huntress after the fall of Haven, Weiss is being held prisoner and made to work at the SDC, Blake has been trying to rid Menagerie of the White Fang, and Yang became an alcoholic after the loss of her arm.
1. Chapter 1

Prologue

Soft rays of light from the midday sun broke into the warehouse through windows, gaps in the walls, and recently made bullet holes. The many rays shone on a concrete floor with puddles of red accompanied by still bodies. Among the bodies, blood, and sunlight was Ruby Rose, seated neetly nearby one of the many corpses. She let out a huff of breath and looked around. Then to the former lieutenant laying in front of her.

"Why can't we ever just talk? It would of been so much easier, and you would still be alive. But noooo, every time I try to talk to you guys, you just have to attack me." She looked at the lieutenant's face as though expecting him to contradict her.

She stood up and was about to stow Crescent Rose when the faintest sound of a breath being drawn touched her ear. Her eyes searched for the source, they came to rest on one of the many White Fang foot soldiers on the floor. His chest was moving a fraction of an inch and his pale hands clutched to a gaping hole in his abdomen. He wore the standard white boots, black pants, white vest with a black hood, and mask of the White Fang.

Ruby stalked toward the dying faunus over the blood slicked floor, stepping over a few of his fallen comrades. By the time she had reached him, he had managed to raise himself off the ground a few inches. Ruby put one of her worn black boots on his chest and pushed him back into the pool of blood that had collected beneath him. Now that she was closer she could see he was about her age, short with an average build and a full head of short blonde hair. She couldn't see his face on account of the mask but his bright green eyes were visible through the eye slits. At first they were frantic, looking for escape, when the realization that there would be none occurred they met Ruby's eyes and searched for sympathy.

Ruby's face was unreadable. Her eyes were a frigid tundra that the faunus lost himself in. She hefted Crescent Rose and changed it into a rifle, then pointed the muzzle at the faunus's face.

If he hadn't lost so much blood he may have struggled or said something, but in his current state he remained silent.

"Can you tell me where Adam Taurus is?" the words floated out of Ruby's mouth, the gentle sound calmed him.

The faunus blinked free from the wasteland of Ruby's eyes. Regret flashed behind the slits of his mask. He took in a frail breath and said, "I'm sorry, I-I don't kn-" He was cut off by Crescent Rose.

Ruby sighed and closed her eyes in frustration. This was the third stronghold she had found and none of the White Fang would tell her where to find Adam. She opened her eyes and began walking out of the warehouse, taking in the carnage she had made. In the years since leaving Haven she had come to accept killing as a part of her life, however it was her least favorite part. She hated to do it. The only thing she hated more were the people who loved it. The lieutenant of this base had been one such person. As she crossed through the wide open doorway of the warehouse her eyes lingered on a heap of humans who had been executed some time before she had arrived. From the chairs arranged to face the execution site and the scattered wrappers for food made her think that it was a common event.

Ruby turned back to the warehouse, pulled Crescent Rose out, sighted a container full of fire dust, and shot. The box erupted in flames and the containers next to it caught fire and exploded. She watched for a few seconds, admiring the way the flames spread. After it was most definitely going to burn to the ground with no traces of the lieutenant or his soldiers, Ruby turned and made her way out of the base.

* * *

The first thing one would notice when walking into Weiss Schnee's office was the expansive curved glass window that served as the back wall to the room, offering a superb view of the city. The skyline was a mixture of stationary, more conventional buildings on the ground with an array of irregularly shaped buildings and vessels plodding around in the sky. Smaller more nimble ships went to and fro, thousands of people milled about on the ground paying no attention to the marvels of engineering and architecture surrounding them. Situated in front of the window was a minimalistic desk with polished metal tubes making up the frame, they supported a spotless glass pane that served as the desktop. The only item occupying the desk was a simple name plate that read, "Weiss Schnee." The next thing that would strike a person was that there wasn't anything else in the room. Nothing adorned the walls, there were no chairs to go along with the desk, and Weiss wasn't there either.

Weiss had been working at the SDC headquarters for five years and hadn't found much use for the space, nice as it was. The only time she could be found in the room was when she would drink her morning coffee and gaze out the window at Atlas and the world beyond. Most of her time was either spent in a meeting room on one of the lower floors or traveling around Remnant meeting with clients of the company.

At this moment she was in one of the meeting rooms at the SDC, seated at the head of a long silver table. Also sitting at the table were a few men and woman whom she had been discussing a contract with. She had given her pitch and was patiently waiting for them to finish squabbling among themselves and reach a decision. These things tended to take time and Weiss had grown bored. It wasn't a new feeling. She had become bored with this job since the first week she had been forced into it.

After she had been taken away from Beacon her father had mostly ignored her, only bringing her around for public appearances, until she had summoned a boarbatusk that nearly gored a party guest. Since then she had been mostly confined to her room and made an attempt to escape, only for her plan to be ruined by a pilot more concerned with the potential reward he would get for not sneaking Jacques Schnees daughter away.

As a sort of punishment she had been given a security team to keep an eye out for any more plots to escape. After her third near escape from the mansion, her father fired the leader of the group and replaced her with a woman called miss Tipota. Her hair was short and the color of charcoal, she was a little more than six feet tall. Her posture was rigid, suggesting some kind of military background along with the rather large pistol she wore on her left thigh. Her usual clothing was a magenta coat, black blouse, gray slacks, and a simple pair of brown boots. Miss Tipota had proven herself to be more observant to Weiss's efforts than the previous leader when she exposed Weiss's uncharacteristically simple plan to mail herself to Vale, it had been a test to see if the woman was more competent than the previous guard as well as Weiss growing tired of putting effort into elaborate schemes to escape. After that her father had made it clear that any further efforts to runaway would be catastrophic for Weiss. He had then told her that she would begin working for the SDC as what amounted to a saleswoman to distract her from her previous habit.

To say that it had worked would be correct, but not completely. Weiss barely thought about running away anymore, she knew there was no chance for it to go unnoticed. What she instead thought about was her rescue. At least she had for the first few years. She knew that Yang had her arm cut off and was no longer a huntress; she wouldn't be coming. Blake had ran from Beacon, abandoning team RWBY, Weiss assumed that she wouldn't bother. Which only left Ruby. Weiss desperately wanted to see her again, not only was Ruby the best friend she had had in her life, but after their separation Weiss had noticed how dull the world seemed. A hole had formed in her chest and the realization that she harbored deeper feelings for her former teammate had been a monumental revelation in her life. After Weiss had come to terms with not being able to escape she had firmly cemented the idea in her head that Ruby would save her. After two years it had waned but was still present. A couple more years passed and she began to lose hope. Five years and Ruby still hadn't come, the once brilliant star of hope in her heart had shrunken to a soft glimmer. Eventually it was replaced by a void of betrayal with Ruby in its center.

* * *

The Menagerie sky was an inky blue decorated by elegant white stars. Accompanying them was the shattered moon, quietly observing the world. Beneath this sky was Blake Belladonna, prone on a sand dune overlooking a White Fang compound. She had been laying there for nearly three hours, patiently waiting for the lieutenant to turn up.

The sound of footsteps made her turn around, grabbing the hilt of Gambol Shroud as she did.

She saw Sun walking up the dune toward her and took her hand off her weapon then said, "I hope you aren't that loud when you sneak up on people."

"Just when I sneak up on you, to see if you're paying attention. Speaking of which; have you seen the target yet?"

"No, but they should be here any minute."

Sun settled down next to Blake, going prone as well. They had spent the last few weeks in the inhospitable part of Menagerie searching for the remaining White Fang encampments. After running away from Beacon and her friends Blake had gone to Menagerie to repair her relationship with her parents. Amidst this a couple representatives of the White Fang had come to talk with Blake's parents. She and Sun had then explained what the White Fang were doing outside of Menagerie, talking at length about their roll in Beacons downfall. This surprised and angered her parents causing them to turn the White Fang away and setting off a series of events where the White Fang tried to maintain their position of esteem and influence in Menagerie.

The most noteworthy being a failed assassination attempt on both of Blake's parents, who were only saved by Illia Amitola having a change of heart at the last minute. From this point Sun, Illia, Blake and her parents began to focus on driving the White Fang from Menagerie. After years of fighting and campaigning to inform the faunus of what was really going on in the rest of the world they were on the verge of winning. The only remaining members of the White Fang were those that had been imprisoned and the ones at the hidden camps.

After a few more minutes passed, a small caravan could be seen approaching the compound. The trucks were loaded with weapons and dust that was kept stored at the remote bases in case any of the other branches of the White Fang needed them.

When the trucks had parked near the warehouse Blake and Sun looked for the lieutenant. She exited one of the trucks and spoke with a few of the faunus around, who then began to give instructions and then the trucks were being unloaded. She was short and had sandy brown hair with matching cat ears, she wore dark gray pants, black boots, and the usual white lieutenant coat.

"You know the plan right?" Blake asked as she got up and stretched.

"Sneak up to the warehouse, plant the bomb, wait for your signal, blow it up, find you, leave." Sun replied in a bored tone, standing up as well. "It'll be easy, just like the first two."

"Be careful." Blake took her eyes off the White Fang to look at Sun.

He smiled and said, "Relax, I'm the definition of careful."

Blake closed her eyes and let out a breath to steady herself, she opened her eyes and said, "Okay, let's go." They parted ways, Sun going to the right side of the base, while Blake went to the left.

Grains of sand shifted beneath Blake's boots as she crept over the desert toward the base. She made no sound, becoming entwined with the shadows of the landscape. Once Blake had reached the fence surrounding the perimeter of the base she jumped over it, landing behind a few crates. She peered around the corner to make sure there weren't any guards around then moved in the direction of the lieutenants building. She traversed the base easily, employing her masterful understanding of stealth. A hint of a smile played at her lips as she thought of the irony, the skills she had learned from her time in the White Fang were being used to remove their leaders and free Menagerie.

Blake had reached the base of the building and began to ascend, using the balconies and whatever protruded from the structure to make her way up. After she had reached the top she went to the side facing the warehouses and took a small light out of her pocket. She cupped a hand around it and flicked it on for a second. She saw an identical light in a secluded spot away from the warehouse. After a moment the peaceful night was disrupted by a roaring fireball that invaded the sky and washed everything in orange light. The bomb Sun had planted caused all of the surrounding dust crates to explode, and set off a chain reaction making the other crates explode too.

An alarm blared and Blake stepped onto the ledge of the building, waiting for sandy brown ears and a white coat. When Blake saw the lieutenant and her two guards exit the building she leapt off her perch. Blake landed on the lieutenant and plunged her blade into the woman's back, aiming for her heart, the woman went still and only a slight sound of surprise escaped her lips. Blake pulled her weapon out of her victim and stood up to look at the guards. They readied themselves to attack but Sun appeared from behind one and struck him unconscious with his staff. The remaining guard shifted his aim to Sun and was about to fire, but Blake kicked it out of his hands and knocked him out with a second kick. With their work done Blake and Sun fled into the night.

* * *

Jovial laughter washed over Yang as she sat in her usual spot at the counter of her favorite bar. All around her were people, drinking and talking with each other, while she sat alone. Her eyes looked over the crowd. She saw regulars there as well as a few people who only turned up every so often. She took a sip from her drink and relaxed. The amount of people and friendly atmosphere of the bar was the reason she liked it so much. She could drink at home whenever she wanted, but it would just be her there. This way she wasn't entirely by herself.

The only problem with coming here was that when she saw people with their friends she would be reminded of team RWBY and their time at Beacon. She took a drink and decided to go down the mental rabbit hole for the thousandth time. The happier memories came first, when Yang and Blake had found each other in the forest, going to classes and being goofy with Ruby, getting scolded by Weiss for goofing around with Ruby, the food fight with JNPR. Then the more unpleasant parts, Blake running away when she admitted to being in the White Fang, attacking Mercury after their fight, the night Beacon fell, and Adam cutting off her arm.

With that done, she would always wonder what they were doing now, what happened since their lives were derailed. Yang took another drink and thought about Weiss. She knew that the heiress had been taken away by her father after the fall, but that was the only thing Yang knew. Yang guessed that she had probably gone to Atlas Academy, graduated top of her class, and been made leader of a team. She was probably going around Remnant hunting grimm right now.

Yang looked down at her prosthetic arm and thought about being a huntress. She missed it: the feeling of doing something good, going on wild adventures with her friends. But that had all ended with the loss of her arm. Her prosthetic was alright, she could use it to perform basic tasks, but nothing as strenuous as punching an Ursa. Despite her longing to be a huntress she didn't regret protecting Blake from Adam, and would have told Blake that, had she not ran away. To her credit, Blake had paid Yang a visit once, sort of. A couple of years ago Yang had been walking in her house when she passed a window and saw something in her periphery. She stopped walking and looked out to see Blake standing in the shadow of a tree. Their eyes met, Yang ran to the door and pulled it open. She looked to where Blake had been, but didn't see her there, Yang had called her name a few times but returned to her house since Blake never came out.

Yang took another drink.

Then there was Ruby, a fully fledged huntress, off on her own slaying grimm throughout Remnant. After she and JNR had gone to Haven they decided to stay there and finish training as huntsmen and huntresses. Ruby had called or messaged Yang and Tai when she could, but due to the limitations of the CCT network, that didn't happen often. Close to three years later news that Haven had been attacked in a similar manner as Beacon became the focus of the world. Yang had frantically tried to get in contact with Ruby but she never answered her scroll. After weeks of fearing the worst Yang was jolted out of sleep by pounding on her door. She climbed out of bed and rushed to the door. When Yang opened it she saw Ruby standing there. Before Yang could say anything Ruby wrapped her arms around Yang in a long awaited hug. Yang returned the embrace and they held each other for minutes.

The reunion came to an end when Ruby choked out, "Yang, you're, squishing me."

"Sorry." Yang squeezed Ruby harder before letting her go. Yang rested her hands on her sisters shoulders and said, "What happened, when I heard Haven was attacked I tried to call a million times but you never answered?"

Ruby looked down and said, "I lost my scroll in the fight. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, Mistrals CCT towers were destroyed while Haven was being attacked." Yang opened her mouth to ask more questions but Ruby spoke before she could, looking at Yang this time, "I know you have a lot of questions, but I walked most of the way here and I've been looking forward to sleeping on a bed instead of dirt. Can we do this in the morning?"

Yang took another drink.

The next morning after a shower and with a stack of fresh pancakes to eat, Ruby had recounted the attack to Yang. White Fang had come in the night and set the school on fire with incendiary bombs. The students and teachers had fought as best they could, but they were caught off guard and outnumbered. Among the dead were Ren, Nora, and Jaune. Yang was saddened by the news, and did her best to comfort her sister, seeing as she had grown close to them through their time as a team. Ruby went on to explain how, a few days after the attack, headmaster Lionheart said that anyone who was in their last year would be made an official huntsman or huntress.

Since then Yang didn't get to see Ruby very often. The rare times that Ruby would show up Yang would always try to talk with her about what she was up to and could never get more than a simple answer out of her, she was hunting, helping Qrow with something, or just taking a break. It wasn't like Yang didn't believe her, she just felt like Ruby and herself had drifted apart over time, Yang missed how they used to be. One night while she lay in her bed trying to go to sleep Yang had come to the realization that she and Ruby weren't close anymore because Yang wasn't a huntress. They had shared interests in the past, but being a huntress had been the most important thing to them when they were younger, with it gone from Yang's life she didn't have much else to do with Ruby.

* * *

Chapter 1

Ruby unzipped the flap that served as a door to her tent and peered outside. The sun was just beginning to rise so it wasn't agonizingly hot yet. She glanced around at the ocean of sand surrounding her and pulled her head back inside.

Ruby picked Crescent Rose up and put it on her back then she grabbed her backpack and went outside. She sat down against the tent and dug a ration out of her pack for breakfast. Her meal was disappointing and the barren desert scenery didn't offer much stimulation, she started to think about why she was even there; Qrow had sent her to Menagerie after his informants told him the White Fang were stockpiling weapons and dust like they had before attacking Beacon and Haven. Along with destroying the stockpiles she was supposed to find and kill Adam Taurus, leaving the White Fang leaderless. With him gone Salem would have no way to control them. It had seemed easy enough at first, but Ruby had become fed up with the stubbornness of the White Fang, and the nothingness of the desert was getting to her. She would walk for two or three days to a base and attempt to talk to the leader, or anyone who would give her a chance, they would refuse to answer and attack her. Although, she was making progress, she had been to three of the eight bases, and would reach the next one sometime tomorrow morning.

After breakfast Ruby took down her tent and stored it in her pack then began the trek to the next base.

As Ruby walked she did the only thing one could do when in complete solitude: she thought about anything and everything. Being alone in a desert would make anyone bored and contemplative. She thought of Yang, it had been close to a year since Ruby had last gone to Patch and seen her sister. She missed Yang but there were more important things to do than visit her. Salem threatening to takeover Remnant took priority over catching up with her family. Yang's drinking was also on Ruby's mind, she didn't like it but had never attempted to discuss it with Yang. Whenever Ruby went home she was always faced with the intimidating idea of talking to Yang about it, which would inevitably lead to finding out what the cause for her drinking was. Over time Ruby considered the possibilities and she had come to the conclusion that there were multiple reasons; the loss of her arm, the inability to be a huntress as a result of losing her arm, Blake abandoning her, Weiss being taken away, and lastly Ruby felt like she had abandoned Yang too. Sure, she had kept in contact as best she could, but Ruby had been away for three years at Haven and then she had barely seen Yang after graduating. Ruby couldn't help but feel like she had played a role in Yang turning to drinking as a coping mechanism for all the things that were no longer a part of her life.

Ruby imagined a world where Yang's arm had never been cut off and they were wandering the desert together. She smiled at that. Since this was just a daydream, Ruby decided that Blake and Weiss would have been there too. She missed them as much as Yang.

"I wonder where they are now?" Ruby mumbled to herself.

Blake could be anywhere doing anything, Ruby had stopped trying to guess a long time ago. Weiss on the other hand, would have gone to Atlas, been made leader of a team, and be one of the greatest huntresses ever. 'She would have forgotten about me by now.' Ruby thought. It sent a pang of wistfulness through her chest.

After their hostile beginnings were forgotten Ruby and Weiss had done their best to be teammates, and they succeeded. Along with being an exceptional pair when fighting the two had formed a phenomenal friendship. The only problem was that Ruby wanted to be more than friends, but she never told Weiss. Ruby had felt it would be better if she just kept everything to herself so that their dynamic as teammates and friends would remain unchanged. 'Besides, she wouldn't be interested in me anyway.' That thought had also been an important factor when she chose to keep her feelings to herself. Weiss was incredible and Ruby was just okay. On top of that, Ruby didn't even know if Weiss was gay. They had never talked about that kind of stuff while they were together, and she never did anything to indicate her tastes. Ruby made the assumption that Weiss was straight and never told her what she felt.

A feeling of isolation wrapped itself around Ruby and she struggled to break free. The sensation reminded her that she was supposed to avoid thinking about her old friends. Every now and then she would forget and think about the past. It always triggered visceral feelings of loneliness and longing. Ruby pushed the thoughts from her head and focused on walking.

* * *

When Blake woke up she heard the crackling of a fire and could smell something being cooked. Her eyes opened up to the inside of her tent, she rolled over to face the entrance and saw Sun sitting near the fire with a couple fish being cooked over it. Beyond him was the white sand of a beach and the azure ocean stretching further than Blake could see.

Blake's stomach rumbled and Sun looked from the fire to Blake, "About time you woke up, it's almost noon."

Blake sat up, "What. We should be on the way to the next location. Why didn't you wake me up?" Blake sent a glare at Sun and he deflected it with a smile.

"I thought you could use the rest, and that gave me enough time to catch these." He proudly gestured to the two fish over the fire.

Blake wouldn't admit it, but she had been tired the last few days, and a hot breakfast would be nice after living off the boring rations that they had been eating.

Begrudgingly Blake asked, "Are they done?"

"I think so, I've never cooked anything over a fire before, but how hard can it be?"

Blake went out to Sun and sat next to him. He pulled both of the fish out and handed one to Blake. Sun took a bite of his and said, "It tastes okay."

Blake looked the fish over to see if there was anything off about it. She didn't notice anything and took a bite. It tasted good and Blake decided that they had already lost a lot of time, a few more minutes wouldn't hurt.

When Blake and Sun finished their breakfast, they broke camp and headed in the direction of the next base.

Blake opened her backpack and selected the file that pertained to the base they were going to next. Months ago, Ghira had raided the White Fangs headquarters, he had found information on everything that the White Fang was doing. Things like the roster of guards at a particular branch, the size of uniform that individual members wore, inventory of supplies, upcoming rallies and meeting places, everything that the White Fang did or knew about was stored there. The most noteworthy being the location and details on eight secret bases that were in the southwestern region of the desert.

"So what have we got to look forward to?" Sun asked, then took a drink from his canteen.

Blake looked over the file and said, "Lieutenant Jinn , he's a chameleon faunus. He was going to be a hunter but changed his mind because he didn't want to protect humans. After that he joined the White Fang and moved up the ranks quickly." Blake's eyes widened and she said, "his body count is over three hundred, and there are a few hunters and huntresses included in that."

Sun looked at Blake and said, "Do you think you'll need help? I can wait to detonate the bombs after I find you."  
"I'll be fine Sun." Blake's eyes returned to the file, "He uses two large swords that are coated with fire dust, his semblance lets him summon fire. So, he can light his swords on fire and when he swings them blasts of fire get launched at whoever he's fighting."

Sun pointedly looked at Blake again.

Blake stopped walking and put the file away, Sun also stopped. Then Blake said, "Sun, I'll be fine, the whole reason we destroy the warehouse is so that they're too distracted to see me coming."

Sun moved closer and held both of Blake's hands, "What if you get seen, what if I get caught, what if the bomb doesn't go off, there are a lot of things that can go wrong Blake." The moments where Sun put aside his goofy attitude were rare and this made Blake realize how worried he actually was.

"Everything will be okay Sun, I can handle myself." Blake took on a softer tone as she tried to reassure Sun.

"I know, I know, I just...can't help but worry." An abashed grin appeared on Suns face.

Blake planted a kiss on his cheek and said, "Don't worry, if anything does happen, I know you'll be there to save me."

Once again Blake and Sun found themselves prone overlooking a White Fang compound. The only difference between this night and the others was that it was the longest they had ever waited. It had been six hours with no sign of their target, and Blake was getting frustrated. She had been working toward the eradication of the White Fang from Menagerie for almost six years and had nearly accomplished that goal. All that remained were the eight hidden compounds, three of which Blake and Sun had already been to. And now, one of their targets had the tenacity to not show himself.

"Why haven't we seen him yet?" despite her irritation, Blake was maintaining her calm demeanor.

"I don't know, maybe he's busy doing...whatever White Fang lieutenants do in their spare time." Sun replied.

Blake thought for a moment.

"I'm certain he's in there. Let's get into position, if we destroy the warehouse he'll come out."

"Are you sure that's a good idea? How do you know he's in there?"

"Where else would he be? The first two were inside the whole time. We didn't see them until they walked by a window." Blake looked at Sun.

Sun took his attention off a pair of guards to look at Blake, "But the last one left while we were waiting and didn't come back for a while. I think he's in there too, but we shouldn't rush in there without knowing for sure."

"Please Sun, I just want to get this over with."

Sun didn't respond. He agreed with Blake, but this lieutenant was remarkably more dangerous than the first three. Sun was hesitant to let Blake face him on her own, even though she had assured him it would be alright.

"Fine, but if for whatever reason something goes wrong, find me before you fight him. Okay?

Blake nodded, "Okay." After a pause she added, "When did you get to be such a pessimist?"

"Ever since your dad threatened to rip me in half if anything happened to you, I've been thinking things through more often."

"He probably can't do that."

"Well, I'm not going to risk it, plus I don't want anything happening to you either, Sorry if I've been a pain about it."

Blake brought her face closer to Suns and said, "I think it's sweet, but we've had this conversation already. I can take care of myself."

"Yeah, you can, but it's easier with friends." Sun closed the distance between them and kissed Blake softly.

He felt Blake smile, and then her hot breath as she spoke, "You know, the sooner we get everything done, the sooner we can go back home."

"What, you don't find laying underneath the stars on a sand dune romantic?"

"It lost its appeal after the first few nights."

"Fair enough, I guess we should get going." Sun stood up and offered a hand to Blake, she grabbed it and Sun pulled her to her feet.

Sun went in the direction of the warehouse while Blake angled for the center of the compound. Once she crossed the small patch of desert between herself and the base, She jumped over the fence and landed nearby a covered area that was used to store vehicles. She was careful to avoid the pair of guards walking around the bays, as well as one guard who seemed to have snuck off for a smoke break between two trucks. After navigating that obstacle she waited until the coast was clear and made a dash to the building. Blake efficiently scaled the side of the building and pulled herself over the ledge when she reached the top. She stood on the roof and began to walk over to where she could better signal Sun. 'perfect, now all I have to do is signal Sun and-

The ringing of an alarm split the night and made Blake jump. She looked at the source of the noise, a speaker only five feet away, and began to panic. She was certain no one had seen her. Sun could have been discovered, but that seemed unlikely, his stealth skills had improved tremendously over the years, and sneaking to the warehouse was simple. Blake went back to the ledge she had climbed over and looked down. Her eyes followed the scattered mass of White Fang uniforms converging on the entrance of the base. Eventually she saw who must have been the cause for the alarm. A single person wearing a red cloak with the hood pulled up had walked through the front gate and was making their way toward the building Blake was on top of. After the surprise wore off, Blake realized this would be a good opportunity to take out the lieutenant. She scanned for him in the crowd but didn't see anyone resembling him. By this point one of the soldiers had yelled something at the figure and they stopped. 'He must still be inside' Blake thought. She had no guess as to why, but the reason didn't matter. Blake hopped over the ledge and landed on the balcony below. She pulled Gambol shroud out and smashed the window of the door. She reached inside and unlocked it, then she withdrew her hand and opened the door.

Normally Blake would have proceeded cautiously, but since every White Fang member was outside she didn't feel the need. She sprinted across the room and out the doorway. According to the information in the files the lieutenants offices were on the third floor, Blake sprinted to the the end of the hallway and leapt down the first half of the stairs, she repeated the action on the second half. A sign nearby proclaimed this was the third floor and Blake looked around. She could hear gunfire and shouting from outside, but decided that must have been because of the person in red.

A door close to the halfway point of the hallway opened and a large chameleon faunus stepped out. He wore black boots, black pants, a red vest, and the white coat given to lieutenants. His head was shaved and his face was rugged. He closed the door and looked at Blake.

His voice rumbled out from behind his beard, "You must be Blake Belladonna. I just got done talking with Adam about you, he warned me about what you've been up to." His face shifted into a frown, "Six of our outposts destroyed in a matter of weeks, you and your friend have been busy."

Blake was confused, she and Sun had only been to three so far, not including this one. Instead of questioning him she chose to raise Gambol Shroud and took a fighting stance. She couldn't think of a reason that he would think they had attacked six of the bases, but there were more important things to do than figure out why.

"Straight to it then." He grinned and took one of his swords out. "I've never been one for talk either." They eyed each other for a second. Blake started the fight by firing off a few rounds and ran at him. He shifted his sword and it blocked the shots, then he ran forward to meet Blake. She jumped to the side to avoid the overhead swing that split the floor when it landed. Blake slashed at the lieutenants side, but he was able to block it. Then he spun with his sword aimed outward. Blake dropped down to the floor while the blade went over her.

Blake summoned a clone and rolled behind the lieutenant. He saw the crouched clone of Blake and lashed out at it with a kick. Blake swung both of her weapons into the lieutenants back, damaging his aura. He whirled around slashing with his sword. Blake jumped backward to avoid the strike. The lieutenant held his hand near his sword and it lit on fire. Without giving Blake time to think he swung it in her direction and a line of fire came racing at her. Blake hadn't been far enough away to dodge it and the edge of the fire caught her in the side. She ignored it and raised her pistol, firing a few shots while she re-positioned. The lieutenant blocked with his sword and performed a quick sequence of strikes that sent fire at Blake. She danced around each one but didn't realize that the lieutenant had placed them specifically so she would move closer to him. The lieutenants sword connected with Blake's midsection and sent her flying backward, all the way to the stairwell where she was halted by the wall.

Blake was dazed and took a few seconds to stand. Luckily for her the lieutenant hadn't taken the opportunity to attack. Blake heard the sound of breaking glass and got up. She reloaded then took the stairs two at a time and ran to the only open door on the floor. She looked into the room and saw that the windows had been smashed, letting the brisk night air in. Blake ran at the windows and leapt out.

Blake realized her mistake when she saw the lieutenant positioned below her. Both his swords were out and ignited. With Blake falling she had no way to defend herself. The lieutenant launched a barrage of fire at Blake and all she could do was brace herself. She felt the impact of each hit on her aura and the intense heat as they washed over her.

When Blake landed she went into a roll and sprang up, firing a full magazine at the lieutenant. In an impressive display of strength and coordination he successfully blocked most of Blake's bullets with only a couple finding their mark. The lieutenant unleashed a furious yell and charged at Blake with both swords raised to strike. Blake raised her weapons to deflect the right attack and she summoned a clone to block the left. Blake was shocked by the force behind the blow and nearly lost grip on her weapons. She felt her clone disappear behind her. The lieutenant brought his knee upward and it connected with Blake's stomach.

Blake fell to the ground on her hands and knees, gasping for air. The lieutenant raised his swords for a downward slice. Blake's life flashed before her eyes. She saw her time in the White Fang when she had been a kid, the heated argument she had with her parents before leaving, Adam and the missions they had done together, the day Blake had met Yang, Weiss, and Ruby, their time at Beacon fighting together, attending classes, meeting Sun and running away from her friends, the Vytal festival, and the fall of Beacon. Blake closed her eyes and thought about all of the mistakes she made. How she always hurt the people that cared about her. She waited to feel the bite of steel on her back.

Instead she heard the sound of steel hitting steel. Blake opened her eyes and saw a rose petal laying next to her hand. She turned her head to see what had stopped the lieutenants blades.

Blake hadn't recovered from getting the wind knocked out of her, the word came out choked and faint, "Ruby?"

* * *

I would appreciate some feedback on this. I want to improve, so any constructive criticism is welcome.

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Ruby wore her cloak wrapped around her body with the hood pulled up to protect against the chill night air. She had been walking all day and was finally within sight of the base. Moonlight illuminated the simple concrete buildings and organized rows of vehicles, a few figures could be seen moving around and she began to wonder if this would be the last time she had to do this. The cynical part of her brain reminded her that even if she did learn where Adam was she would still need to find him, and who knew how long that would take. If Ruby didn't get anyone to tell her where Adam was then she would need to go to the next base, and the next one, and so on, until someone told her where to find Adam, or until she had been to each one.

She resigned herself to the task at hand and stepped through the entryway of the base with no fear. Since coming to Menagerie she had fought quite a few members of the White Fang and none of them had come close to challenging her. Due to this fact, and her desire to avoid unnecessary fighting, she always gave them a chance to talk. Given the White Fangs track record she knew that was unlikely, but even still, she felt it was the right thing to do.

The whine of an alarm signaled that her entry had been noticed and a group of White Fang ran toward the entrance, they stopped ten meters away and held their rifles on Ruby.

A rabbit faunus who seemed to be a few years older than the others yelled, "Freeze, stay where you are!"

Ruby obeyed, she looked at them in case they had anything else to say. This was the first time any of the White Fang had not chosen the shoot first, ask questions later approach, and Ruby was pleasantly surprised. There were more White Fang gathering around the scene as the seconds ticked by.

"Who are you, why are you here?" The same man who told her to freeze said this.

Ruby pushed a hand out from behind the curtain of her cloak, causing a few of the soldiers to flinch, she reached up and pulled down her hood then withdrew her hand back inside. She looked up at the alabaster moon and then at the increasing mass before her, she counted thirteen weapons aimed at her and guessed that there were maybe fifty White Fang total.

Ruby opened her mouth and raised her voice, "My name is Ruby, I want to see your lieutenant." She looked around once more and saw that there were no more soldiers coming.

"Lieutenant Jinn is busy. I will talk with you until he comes to speak with you himself."

After a moment Ruby said, "Well, maybe you can help me instead." Ruby aimed her best disarming smile at him.

He didn't respond. Ruby felt suspicion emanating from the mass of faunus.

"I was hoping you could tell me where Adam Taurus is?"

He remained silent, perhaps thinking of the best way to handle this situation. After coming to a decision, he said, "I can't do that." His trigger finger moved.

Ruby had been expecting the shot and was ready. Where she had been standing a cloud of rose petals now hung in the air. The White Fang panicked and began looking around for her. The man who had shot was swiveling his head around like the rest when he felt an arm wrap around his throat from behind. He heard a soft sinister whisper in his ear, "I wish you had just answered my question."

He felt a sharp pain in his side and knew that he had been stabbed. He tried to yell but only a wheezing noise came out because his left lung had been punctured by Ruby's knife.

Ruby pushed the faunus away and drew Crescent Rose, deploying it as she did. The alarmed shouts of White Fang sounded around her, she spun in a circle with her scythe outward, felling several White Fang. A handful of soldiers who had their weapons trained on her moments ago turned and fired wildly, seemingly forgetting their comrades behind Ruby. She used her semblance to dodge while a few White fang went down from friendly fire. Ruby ran at the group of shooters and fired a shot to propel herself forward, in a second she flew by and cut through them. After this display of brutal efficiency, a panic set into the remaining White Fang. Some opted to drop their weapons and retreat, while others raised their own instrument of death and tried to get revenge on the woman who had killed and injured their friends and allies.

Ruby was grateful to those that had abandoned the fight. At the previous bases a minority had left when the fighting started, for whatever reason a large portion of White Fang had fled this time. The few that had remained were easily defeated. Even though a considerable number of faunus had saved themselves, Ruby would be replaying the fight in her head for days to come. It would join the archive of moments where she had taken people's lives. Despite the justification of self-defense or that it was a necessary evil, the weight of her actions was pressing down on her shoulders every hour of every day. Living with the guilt had become easier, but she would never get used to it.

Before Ruby could think about killing anymore, she saw a man break through a window of nearby building and watched him fall. He landed and turned his attention to the building that he had jumped out of. Ruby saw that he held a flaming sword which cast crazed shadows on the concrete. He drew a second sword from his back, igniting it like the other. In the seconds that followed Ruby realized he was wearing the coat of a lieutenant, and another person jumped out of the building. From the shape Ruby thought that it was a woman. She rolled, got up and fired at the man. 'Her pistol looks a lot like Blake's, so does her sword.' Ruby thought. She watched the lieutenant deflect the shots and heard him roar before he charged. It wasn't until Ruby saw an identical girl appear out of thin air that she understood what she was seeing. The realization jolted her out of mild curiosity to a state of uncompromising urgency. At that point Blake was on all fours and the man had both of his swords raised.

It was likely the fastest that Ruby had ever moved, she covered the distance between herself and the lieutenant in an instant and caught his swords on the inside of her scythe. Before he had a chance to comprehend what was happening, Ruby lifted upward and pulled the trigger of her weapon. The force was enough to disengage their blades, then Ruby took advantage of the lieutenant's shock, evidenced by the yellow tone of his skin, and slashed downward cutting off his legs below the knee. He fell backward with a look of disbelief on his face.

Ruby turned her attention to Blake. She was still on her hands and knees gasping for breath. Ruby offered her former friend a hand.

In the moment were Blake hesitated to grab Ruby's hand, Ruby examined her. She no longer wore anything to hide her ears, her hair was still long and black as night. She was still beautiful, albeit a little beat up after that fight. When Ruby pulled Blake to her feet she also noticed that her style hadn't changed: form fitting black and white clothes that revealed tantalizing amounts of skin without ruining the mystery.

"Hey" Ruby said with a neutral tone, "Long time no see."

Ruby had thought she would never see Blake again. Finding her in the middle of nowhere and saving her life at the last possible second made her wonder if the universe was trying to tell her something. Perhaps she was supposed to give her a second chance and forget about all of those hard feelings that she had been nurturing since the moment she found out Blake had run away. Maybe it had been an opportunity for Ruby to decide if Blake was still important to her, if she had chosen not to save her then no one would ever know. But she had saved Blake, which must mean something, right? There was also the most plausible scenario where the universe didn't give a fuck about anything and Ruby saving Blake was just one insignificant event on a planet rampant with them.

Blake tried to respond but started coughing.

Seeing that Blake was having a coughing fit, Ruby said, "I'll give you a minute. I need to talk to him anyway." Ruby gestured over her shoulder with a thumb.

Blake nodded and tried to stifle her coughs.

Ruby walked over to the lieutenant and put Crescent Rose away.

The lieutenant groaned and looked at Ruby, "Who the fuck are you?"

Ruby ignored the question and looked him over. The puddles of blood forming around the stumps of his legs weren't too big yet, she estimated a couple minutes to get an answer out of him.

"Who I am isn't important, you on the other hand…you're the lieutenant here, right?"

His skin turned red and his face contorted into a mess of fury and pain. He grabbed onto his jacket and snarled at Ruby, "What do you think this means?"

In contrast, Ruby's voice remained calm and she said, "I'm just making sure I have the right guy." Ruby settled down near the lieutenant's head. She pulled a knife from somewhere on her person. It was one piece of steel coated black, there were holes in the handle to reduce weight and it was double edged. "I've been trying to find out where Adam Taurus is, can you tell me?"

Blake looked up at the mention of Adam. She had mostly recovered and was able to say, "You're looking for Adam?"

Ruby looked over her shoulder at Blake, "Yeah, I've been trying to find him for the last couple of weeks."

"Why?" Blake couldn't think of a logical reason for Ruby to be in Menagerie, and to hear that she was looking for Adam made even less sense.

Before Ruby could respond the lieutenant interrupted, "Aren't you two working together?"

Ruby turned back to him and said, "No. Can you tell me what I want to know, or not?"

He tried to smile but it looked more like a grimace, "Even if I wanted to tell you, I can't because I don't know where he is either."

Once again, Ruby had failed to obtain the information she needed. Her mental and physical exhaustion caught up to her then. She felt defeated, spending all this time and energy to find someone who would tell her how to find the person she actually wanted to find. With so many disappointments behind her she imagined how many more there would be before she finally got to Adam. If it took long enough she would be too late and whatever Salem had planned would be executed. Ruby smothered her frustration. Feeling sorry for herself wouldn't help anything and she needed to continue her search.

"I know where he is." Blake's voice was quiet, but Ruby and the lieutenant heard her clearly. They both looked at her.

Blake met Ruby's eyes with some difficulty and said, "A few months ago, my father attacked the White Fang headquarters and found information on everything. Out of curiosity, I looked at where Adam was. I thought that after we took Menagerie back, I could go finish things with him."

A rejuvenating wave of relief washed over Ruby, she sprang up and rushed over to Blake while saying, "You have to tell me where he is. I need to find him." The calm tone in Ruby's voice was gone, she almost sounded frantic.

Blake backed up a half-step, "Why do you want to find him, what are you going to do?"

Ruby realized how desperate she had sounded and focused on maintaining a level tone, "I can't tell you everything, but I'm going to kill him."

Blake didn't know what to say. Ever since Adam had hurt Yang Blake wanted him dead, and she felt that she should be the one to do it. She knew it wouldn't make amends for what had happened, but it was her fault that Yang had been attacked. Along with the guilt of what happened to Yang there was also a myriad of heinous things Adam had done while Blake had been fighting alongside him. She had failed to notice how he had changed until it was too late. If she had just paid closer attention and not been blinded by how he made her feel, everything would have been different. It was because of these failures that Blake saw Adam as her problem to solve, and no one else's.

When Blake didn't answer Ruby started to say, "Blake, please, I-" but the lieutenant's voice overtook hers.

"Would you two shut up already. It's bad enough that I'm dying but having to hear you-" After the first sentence Ruby turned back to the forgotten lieutenant. She paused for half a second then threw her knife at him. Ruby turned back to Blake without seeing her knife find its mark in the man's neck. Blake's eyes widened at the suddenness of it. He grunted from pain and reached up to feel the wound. Blood seeped out around the knife. The dying lieutenant pulled the weapon out and cast it aside.

Ruby said, "Please, I need to know where he is. If I don't kill Adam soon then something like Beacon and Haven will happen again." Her face was set with a fierce determination, behind her the lieutenant was still attempting to hold his neck closed and faint gurgling noises could be heard.

It took a moment for Ruby's words to register in Blake's mind, "Are you saying that Adam is going to attack another school?"

"Yes. That's why I'm here, I've been trying get someone in the White Fang to tell me where to find him before it's too late."

"If that's true…" Blake trailed off, she forced herself to look at Ruby, she had never thought it would be difficult to meet her eyes, "I want to tell you, it's just, I feel like Adam is my fault. I should be the one to kill him." Blake attempted to force the conviction she felt at killing Adam into the sentence.

The frustration that Ruby had suffocated moments ago roared up to the surface. "What?" Ruby's face changed to a look of outrage. "Why does it fucking matter who kills him? As long as he's dead before Salem can have the White Fang at-" Ruby put a hand over her mouth. It had just slipped out. She chided herself, she had been angry and didn't even think about what she was saying until it was too late. Qrow had told her to keep Salem and anything about the maidens a secret. And Ruby had just shouted half of that secret in Blake's face.

Blake recoiled at Ruby's outburst and was tentatively waiting for her to finish. When she said Salem, Blake became confused. From her reaction it was something that she shouldn't have said. Before Blake could ask what Ruby was talking about she and Ruby heard, "Blake!"

They turned to look at the source of the noise and saw Sun running at them. In the next moment Sun had wrapped Blake in a hug. The panic Blake had felt at Ruby's anger began to subside with Sun's presence. He pulled away but kept his hands on her shoulders.

"I heard the alarm and then there was gunshots and screaming. A bunch of White Fang ran by where I was hiding. And you didn't come get me, so I got worried and started going around looking for you." He took a few breaths, then said, "What happened?"

Blake felt sorry, she had been so distracted by her fight with the lieutenant and talking to Ruby that she had forgotten Sun didn't know what was going on.

From behind Sun and Blake, Ruby said, "That was my fault, sorry." Sun had been so fixated on Blake that he hadn't noticed Ruby until then.

"Ruby, is that you?"

"Yeah, that's me. Hi Sun." Ruby's voice sounded more enthusiastic and she showed no signs of the irritation from seconds ago.

Sun tilted his head slightly to the side, something Blake had seen him do whenever he was thoroughly confused, and he said, "What are you doing here?"

* * *

Its been a while since I updated this story, I want to write it but I've just been so busy with life things that time and energy to write are hard to come by. I would love some feedback on this, any constructive criticism is welcome.

Thanks for reading, hope you liked it, and I hope that I can update it more frequently in the future.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Most mornings Weiss would lay in bed for the few minutes before her alarm went off, thinking about what she had to do that day. As usual, she had an abundance of meetings with people she didn't care to see. Then there was the flood of emails to sift through: over the course of the day she would send replies or fill out the appropriate paperwork for whoever had sent it. Phone calls from clients in various moods would occur randomly, and she would attempt to help with whatever they wanted. To her own displeasure, Weiss was excellent at navigating the shrewd world of business. She had become a lucrative asset to her father over the years, and not once did she receive any sort of acknowledgement. Although it didn't really matter anymore, the want for approval had been killed off long ago. She performed well to keep up the act of the worn-down heiress, confined to a world of bland office spaces and her luxurious jail.

Weiss's alarm let her know that it was time to stop thinking about her life and go live it. Her eyelids slid open, she looked at her scroll on the nightstand and gently hit the off button. She sat up and placed her attention on the massive window between her book shelves, it served as a frame to a picturesque winter landscape. The Schnee manor had been buried under a thick blanket of untouched snow. The sun was just beginning to crest the distant pine forest and its soft rays bounced off the flawless white landscape making it appear to glow.

Weiss pushed the covers aside and extricated herself from her oversized and impossibly comfortable bed. Her bare feet touched the rug she had put down to avoid the freezing floor beneath it. Weiss rubbed the sleep from her eyes and went to her wardrobe, she opened it and contemplated what to wear. A few ideas crossed her mind, but she opted for a white blazer, a dark red dress shirt, a white skirt, black stockings, and black heels. She put her clothes on her bed and sat at her vanity to apply some makeup and get her hair under control.

While putting the final touches on her face, Weiss realized that she didn't have anything to do after work. She checked the calendar on her scroll to make sure there wasn't some event, meeting, or any kind of business-related thing she was forgetting. She was a little surprised to see that there was in fact nothing else on her schedule later in the day. Which begged the question: what should she do?

There were few people Weiss enjoyed spending time with, and she couldn't see any of them at the moment. She could go out by herself, or she could stay home. In the past Weiss had gone out alone and enjoyed herself well enough, but the idea didn't appeal to her now. 'If I stay home, then what? She asked herself, time to herself was rare and she hadn't been expecting to be free of any expectations for a while. There were endless possibilities and trying to decide what would be the best way to start her weekend was proving difficult.

Just when she was finishing with her hair, Weiss was struck by a brilliant and utterly simple idea.

* * *

Many hours later, Weiss was in one of the courtyards around her house. She held Myrtenaster out front with her back straight and one foot forward. Her breath floated into the freezing air. Large snowflakes were steadily falling, further entombing Schnee manor. An all-white Beowolf leapt at her, she stepped out of its path and summoned a glyph in the air where she had been. The Beowolf became stuck in the glyph and Weiss ran her rapier through it, she pulled her weapon out and jumped backward to avoid a strike from an Ursa, its massive white paw smashed down where she had been.

In mid-air, she summoned another glyph and pushed off it with her legs. The Ursa was too slow to move out of the way, Weiss managed to stab upward through its lower jaw into its brain, before it even started to fall apart, she was moving onto the next threat. Three Boarbatusk were charging at her, they somersaulted forward and continued rolling at Weiss, gaining speed rapidly.

Weiss reversed her grip on Myrtenaster and stabbed it into the ground. Three red glyphs appeared before her, each glyph launched a fireball that swallowed up a Boarbatusk and left no trace of it. With no immediate danger, Weiss spent a moment to catch her breath, she took up her stance again.

Her eyes scanned the area for the final grimm.

She had been summoning grimm and fighting them for close to two hours now and was looking forward to a quiet night spent reading by a fire.

The incessant snowfall obscured Weiss's vision and seemed to amplify the silence. The snow to her left rose up and a King Taijitu struck at her, mouth agape with deadly fangs ready to perforate her body. Weiss knew that there was a King Taijitu somewhere waiting to attack, she had summoned it after all, but she wasn't prepared for the speed it possessed. She was unable to avoid the bite and it grabbed ahold of her from waist to ankle. This was the first time she had been struck that evening, so her aura kept her safe from any real damage but being bit by a snake the size of a train didn't feel great.

Weiss swore, partially from the pain, but also because of her own incompetence at letting a giant snake sneak up on her. She felt the grimm put more force into its bite, trying to squeeze the life out of her. Weiss tightened her grip on her weapon and looked for the grimm's eyes. She found one pale orb with a lifeless iris and matching pupil. When Weiss stabbed the eye, she heard a wet sucking sound and withdrew her blade.

Had this been an actual grimm Weiss would have hesitated to do such a thing. Stabbing something in the eye tended to make it angry and seeing as she was in its mouth, that would be bad. Her hope was that this particular King Taijitu would release her if it became distracted by the sudden pain and loss of its eye. If this were a real grimm and it didn't let her go she would be done for. But this was a grimm she had summoned, if she wanted it to stop trying to kill her, she could tell it so. But Weiss hadn't had to do that yet and she wanted to keep it that way. Luckily for her the King Taijitu did release her as it was overcome with pain and confusion from the loss of its eye. Weiss was thrown to the side as the snake began to shake its head wildly and hiss.

Her fall was cushioned by a bank of snow, although some snow found its way beneath her layers and she fought the urge to try and shake it out. She climbed out of the snow as fast as possible and readied herself for the next attack. The head that had grabbed Weiss was still thrashing around, while the other head had taken charge and was moving at Weiss.

The seconds ticked by and Weiss found herself wondering if she should summon more grimm or if this would be the last bout for the night. She was getting tired, but training was one of the few things she still did that brought her joy. It was also an excellent outlet to work out her stress and frustrations. At the same time, the thought of a hot cup of coffee and a nice warm blanket helped make up her mind.

When the uninjured head was within reach, it struck downward at Weiss. She jumped back and made a few gravity glyphs above the snake, the combined force pressing the head into the ground and holding it there. She rushed forward intent on skewering its brain.

By then the one-eyed head had gotten itself under control and saw the predicament of its other head. The injured head managed to yank its opposite head out of the vice that was Weiss's glyphs a moment before she would have ended it.

Weiss glared at the one-eyed head and rushed at it. The injured head lunged at her, Weiss created an ice wall to block its attack. The other head found its way around the wall and crashed into the spot Weiss had been standing. Weiss realized she wouldn't be able to attack one head with the other still able to defend. A series of glyphs appeared, Weiss jumped from one to the next until she had reached the opposite end of the courtyard.

Both heads stared intently at Weiss across the great distance, she dropped back down to the ground and met its gaze. The injured heads tongue flicked out of its mouth and the grimm started to move at Weiss. Its long body slithered through the snow faster than she had been expecting.

Weiss opened Myrtenaster and emptied the cylinder of its dust, then she slotted it full of ice dust vials. The grimm was only a few seconds away when she flicked the breach closed. The King Taijitu leapt at Weiss and she raised her weapon in response.

A field of spikes erupted out of the snow and pierced the grimms body in a hundred places, lifting it completely off the ground. The grimm began to thrash and hiss in an attempt to break free, but the spikes held firm.

Weiss looked at the struggling snake and then summoned a large glyph in front of it. The gleaming white form of her Arma Gigas rose up and stood facing the snake. Weiss mentally commanded her knight to kill the grimm, and she watched as it strode forward. The injured head thrashed more violently than it had been doing, knowing what was to come.

The knight raised its sword and swung down, cleaving through the snake's armor, separating the injured head from its body. Half the snake went limp while the other half continued to struggle. Her knight took a few steps closer to the head before Weiss told it to stop.

Weiss regarded both of her summons. The King Taijitu was still struggling, though with less fervor, and her knight was motionless as the frigid wind whipped it with snow. Weiss sheathed her weapon and dismissed both her servants.

* * *

After coming in from training Weiss shed her layers of winter clothing and had taken a gloriously hot shower. She exited her bathroom wearing her nightgown to find a roaring fire had been made in her fireplace, and there was a steaming cup of coffee next to the book she was looking forward to getting lost in.

Mentally thanking Klein, she took a sip of her coffee. Before settling down in what Weiss thought of as the most comfortable chair she had ever encountered, she grabbed a plush red blanket and wrapped herself in it. As Weiss sank down into the chair, she resisted the urge to let out an audible sigh of contentment, it was rare for her to find the time to relax, and she had learned to appreciate these moments.

Weiss took another sip of her coffee and picked up her book, opening it to her bookmark.

* * *

A little after midnight, Weiss took one last sip of her coffee and set her book down, she had been losing a fight to keep her eyes open in the last chapter and finally decided to give in to sleep. She stood up, making sure to keep the blanket wrapped about herself, the fire had died down to a whisper, and she stalked over to the window. Looking out on the pitch-black night and rapidly falling snowflakes, she thought back on what she had done that day: she had crushed all opposition to the expansion of the Schnee's influence and wealth.

It made her feel empty. None of the people she had met, conversations she had, or things she had done felt rewarding. She didn't want to be living like she was. She wanted to be out in the world, hunting with her friends. As much as she hated Ruby for not rescuing her, she still hadn't given up on her. Otherwise what did she have left.

Weiss went to sleep with thoughts of life if Beacon had never fallen running through her head.

* * *

Yang's bed faced an array of windows that offered a view of her backyard. The grass was green, and the yard itself gradually sloped down to a creek that served as a divider between her property and a wooded area. The sun was just beginning to creep over the trees, and it cast a welcoming light into Yang's room.

The ringing of an alarm roused Yang from her sleep and she reached over to shut her scroll up. She blinked against the brightness and slumped back down, pulling a pillow over her head to shut out the light. Her headache was bad, but it was far from being awful, and her mouth was dry. Yang let out half-hearted groan.

Despite her desire to stay in bed, Yang knew that it was time to get up. She shifted onto her back and let out a breath, putting the pillow aside, she stared at the ceiling. She could stay in bed; she didn't have to go to work. It's not like she would get fired. There had been days where she had done exactly that: close the blinds and blow off work to sleep all day. Although, she didn't want to make a habit of it, no work means no money, and no money means no booze.

Yang pushed her covers aside and sat up, stamping down that feeling of wanting to do nothing at all. She went over to her clean clothes pile and picked out some jeans, an old t-shirt she liked, and some socks. She changed into her outfit and went to the bathroom, after running through her routine, she meandered to the kitchen and poured a hefty bowl of cereal.

She settled down on the used-and-abused sofa, then started flipping through channels on the TV. She saw the usual morning talk shows, cartoons, episodes of old shows she had never heard of, until she settled on the news. There had been a few attacks by the White Fang and General Ironwood was trying to explain what was being done about them. He droned on about preserving the delicate balance between security and safety. Yang idly listened while she ate the last few spoonfuls of her breakfast.

Yang turned the TV off and went back to the kitchen, she put the bowl in the sink. Then she opened the fridge and drank a few mouthfuls of orange juice straight from the container before putting it back. Finally, she grabbed her boots and pulled them on, then stepped out her front door.

Her garage was nearby the house, so she didn't walk far. Looking at the simple structure she couldn't help but think of what her life could have been.

Yang still wanted to be a huntress, but it wasn't feasible. Her prosthetic wasn't built to withstand fighting grimm. It had taken years for Yang to come to terms with her reality, and she still wasn't completely comfortable with everything. But the world wouldn't stop turning just because she couldn't live out her dream anymore. Which meant she had to come up with something else to spend her time on. After a lot of deliberation and looking at what was around her, Yang decided on being a mechanic. She enjoyed tinkering with engines and was good at maintaining them, or even fixing broken ones.

Because Patch was a small town, Yang predicted that there would be enough work to keep her busy without overwhelming her, and she had been right. She made enough money to get by and live well enough.

It was a pretty decent life, all things considered. Not what she wanted, but decent.

Yang unlocked the side door and stepped inside, she flicked the lights on and surveyed everything.

There were a few cars in varying states of repair, and Bumblebee was at the opposite end of the garage in its own bay. Posters of anything and everything had taken over the walls. Tools and parts were haphazardly spread around every filthy surface. Yang hit a button and the garage bay doors all slid upward with a mechanical whirring, flooding the musty space with brilliant light. Yang went over to her stereo and plugged her scroll in. After pushing a few icons, her music started playing and she danced over to one of the cars she had to work on.

* * *

Yang stepped into her home and slipped her boots off, placing them to the side of the door. She went over to the fridge and pulled out a microwave dinner. She put it in the microwave and went into her living room to turn on the TV while her dinner cooked. She found an episode of a reality show to watch. The beeping of the microwave pulled her back out to the kitchen where she retrieved her steaming dinner.

Yang plopped down on the couch and set her dinner on the coffee table. There was still one thing missing. The end tables around her couch had an assortment of liquor to choose from and she randomly selected one such bottle.

* * *

Pale light flickered wildly around the room, the outside world had gone dark.

Yang lay on her side beneath a heavy blanket dully watching an ad. The husk of her dinner remained on her coffee table and she was loosely holding the bottle of whiskey. She had been watching reruns of an old sitcom for hours. With the credits of the episode scrolling up the screen, she decided it was time for bed. She set her bottle on the table, clicked the TV off, and got up.

The floorboards creaked as she ambled to her room, taking care not to run into anything. Upon reaching her room, she briefly waged a mental war over brushing her teeth and changing or collapsing on her bed immediately. If she was sober enough to remember that she should do those things, then she might as well. Yang reluctantly went around her bed and entered her bathroom, a couple minutes later she left the bathroom and took off her pants and socks.

Climbing into bed, Yang pulled the covers around herself and lay still, silently knowing that tomorrow would be the same as today.

* * *

Its only been two months since I updated this, no big deal. In my defense I have been busy with school and stuff, I was also working on other stories too.

This chapter is supposed to be a more detailed look at what Weiss and Yang's daily life is like. I would have liked to make the Yang part longer, but I couldn't think of anything else.

As always, constructive criticism is welcome and thanks for reading. Hopefully I will be able to get the next chapter out over Christmas break.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

In answer to Sun's question, Ruby said, "I'm looking for Adam, we were just talking about that." She gave Blake a friendly smile.

For a moment, she resembled the same innocent girl Blake had known at Beacon. Blake hadn't forgotten Ruby's previous outburst, but she was glad to see that Ruby still possessed the same cheerfulness as when she was younger, Blake nodded and said, "From what the lieutenant said, she's already been to the bases north of here looking for where to find him. Which means there's only a couple left."

At the mention of the lieutenant Ruby looked at his body. Without his constant gurgling noises, she had forgotten he was even there.

"That's great! We'll be done with this mission even sooner than we thought. And we'll be able to show you around Menagerie after its over." Sun directed the last part at Ruby, who had gone to retrieve her knife and was wiping it on the lieutenant's coat.

"As fun as that sounds, I can't. I need to find Adam sooner rather than later. To do that, I have to find someone that knows where he is, but that hasn't happened yet." Ruby stood up and faced Blake, sending her a subtle look. She didn't want to call her out in front of Sun because she was under the impression Blake hadn't told him about her plan to hunt down Adam.

Sun said, "I'm sure you'll find someone at the last two bases. If you don't, we can take you to their old headquarters and let you look around the database for info on him."

Ruby went back over to Sun and Blake, saying, "That would be fantastic. But I have a feeling I'll find someone who can help me soon." Ruby didn't bother gauge Blakes reaction, instead she moved the conversation to another topic.

"Sooooo, how would you guys feel about setting up camp together for the night?" Ruby was ready to get off her feet, and a chance to talk with some old friends would be a welcome change to her solitary nights, maybe she could get through to Blake and convince her to say where Adam is.

"That would give us a chance to catch-up on what's happened over the years." Sun said.

Blake had considered what would happen if she saw any of team RWBY again; Yang would hate her for obvious reasons, Blake felt she deserved it. Weiss would think her a coward for leaving while she had been forced to go. Ruby would hate her and think she was a coward. Blake was the reason that her sister could no longer be a huntress and she had run away instead of staying to help with the aftermath.

She hadn't wanted to leave them. They were the first family she had been a part of since leaving her real family. But she knew that staying with them would only put them in danger, as evidenced by what Adam did to Yang. Leaving RWBY was the hardest thing she had ever done in her life, but she still believed it had been the right thing to do. No matter how much they hated her, she would stand by her decision.

Now that Ruby was here, she wanted to try and explain all of that to her. Since Ruby had saved her from the lieutenant and she hadn't brought up Yang or how Blake ran away, she hoped that there was still a possibility of being forgiven by her.

"I'd like that."

* * *

After spending close to half an hour putting some distance between themselves and the decimated White Fang base Blake, Sun, and Ruby agreed to settle down for the night. They had pitched their tents and started a fire, which they were all seated around, eating an underwhelming dinner.

"I know you guys said a little bit about this on the way over, but how did you meet after Beacon?" Ruby had been wondering that ever since Sun showed up. What had brought them together, and why hadn't Blake fled from him.

Sun had a mouth full of food, so Blake answered, "I decided to go back to Menagerie and see my family. The last time I saw them I said some harsh things and I wanted to apologize. So, I bought a ticket for the next boat. While I was standing on the deck looking out over the ocean, a giant Sea Feilong rose up out of the water. The ship wasn't really equipped to handle a grimm of that scale, so I stared to fight it, then Sun, who had been following me in this ratty old cloak, threw it off and we beat the grimm together." Blake's mouth curled into a smile and Sun swallowed his food, "You're making it sound romantic." He looked at Ruby, "It was not romantic, we almost died, and she told me I shouldn't have come. But she couldn't run away from me because we were in the middle of the ocean." Blake tensed up slightly, but Ruby didn't seem to react at the mention of Blake running away.

"By the time we were at Menagerie she wasn't so insistent on me leaving, so I stuck around, and I've been sticking around ever since." Sun's hand crept over to Blake's.

"That's cute, and it makes sense from what I remember of you two at Beacon." She found herself genuinely glad to see Blake happy. "You also mentioned something about starting the movement against the White Fang, what made you do that?"

Sun looked at Blake, "That was all her, like I said, I just hang around. Blake made all of that happen." Blake looked slightly abashed, Sun continued, "Once we got to Menagerie, Blake wanted to see her parents first. While we were talking to them" Sun interrupted himself to say how great Blake's parents are and that Ruby had to meet them, "Anyway, these guys from the White Fang show up. We found out Blake's parents didn't know what the White Fang had been doing in the rest of the world. After we filled her parents in, they told them to leave. From there we had a few encounters with Illia." He interrupted himself again to say that Ruby needed to meet her too, "Blake and me tried to get the faunus to fight against the White Fang but it didn't work. Eventually Corsac and Fener, they're the guys from the beginning, they show up and tried to kill Blake's family and me, but Illia stopped them. When all the faunus were gathered outside her house after the battle, Blake convinced them to fight for a better representation of the faunus, and that was the start of taking the White Fang back." Sun stopped to think for a second, "Yeah that's everything." He nodded to himself.

"Really, that's how you're telling the story." Blake almost couldn't believe the utter casualness with which Sun recounted nearly being killed and inspiring a revolution.

"Well yeah, that's what happened, right?"

Blake rolled her eyes and felt her mouth form a grin, she momentarily forgot about everything else going on in the world, the nervousness at seeing Ruby again. For the first time in a long time she didn't feel the weight of Menagerie's uncertain future and all her past decisions bearing down upon her. Tonight, she was just talking with old friends.

"That's enough about us, what have you been doing since Beacon?" Sun asked. Ruby was still very much the cheerful, resolute girl he'd known but she had gained a battle-hardened undertone, he was curios as to what had brought that on.

"Where should I start?" Ruby asked herself, she looked upward and thought on it. Moments later, her gaze shifted back to Sun and Blake, "The winter after Beacon fell, Jaune, Nora, Ren, my uncle Qrow and I left for Haven. That could be its own story, but it took a long time and it wasn't easy, eventually we got to Haven. And we were surprised by how nice it was, it kind of felt like Beacon." A bittersweet smile had snuck onto her face.

Ruby looked into the fire and took a breath, "After we saw the campus and talked with some of the students and professors, we started to think about finishing training there. My uncle said it was a good idea, and that was the last push we needed, although I don't know what else we would have done." Ruby had a far-off look in her eyes and her voice had lost its usual cadence.

"It was nice." Not the same as team RWBY, she didn't let herself say that, "We learned a lot about being hunters and each other. Things started to feel normal again. As the years went by, we improved a lot and became great friends." She stopped talking and only the fires crackling interrupted the stillness.

"One night in our last year, the White Fang attacked. It was like Beacon all over again. I don't like to talk about the details, but Jaune, Nora, and Ren died. A lot of people did." Blake and Sun stared at Ruby with rapt attention. This was the first time they had heard about another school being attacked.

A flurry of thoughts and emotions whirled around inside Blake. She was outraged to learn that the White Fang had attacked another school. At the same time, she felt a deep sadness thinking about all of those lives lost due to the actions of some misguided faunus. Intermingled with the first sadness was another, for Ruby. Her first team had broken apart, and her second team had been crushed before they even got a chance to be huntsman.

"A few days later, headmaster Lionheart said that anyone who was in their last year and survived would be made an official huntsman. Since then I've been going around Remnant hunting grimm and doing a few missions for Qrow." Ruby nibbled at the last bit of her food While Blake and Sun tried to think of a response.

"That's…that's awful." Was all Sun could say.

"I'm so sorry." Came Blake's quiet apology.

The crackling of the fire did its best to fight off the silence that had settled over the group.

"How long ago?" Blake asked quietly.

Ruby focused on the fire, "Three years ago."

"Does that mean you've been wandering around Remnant fighting grimm by yourself for three years." Blake asked.

"Mostly. Sometimes I find groups of people who need protection and I'll go with them for a while, occasionally I work with other huntsman teams when the opportunity presents itself." Sun noticed Blake's ears curl inward slightly, he asked Ruby, "I don't mean to sound insensitive, but have you thought about finding another team?"

She nodded, "I have, but it wouldn't feel right." She had also thought about getting team RWBY back together, never seriously. It was always a nice daydream, but it never got to be more than that. Mainly because she thought she would never see Blake or Weiss again. And even if she did, there was no guarantee they would want to be a team again.

The conversation ended with that. Ruby said that she was going to sleep, Blake and Sun bid her goodnight.

* * *

A strong breeze was blowing against Ruby's tent when she woke up. She rubbed her eyes and rolled onto her back. She wanted to sleep a little longer, but the empty feeling in her stomach and her own dedication to finishing her mission won. Opening her tent and looking out she was greeted by the sight of another tent and Sun eating nearby the remains of the fire from last night.

Ruby was happy to have found some of her old friends, regardless of how she felt about Blake, it had been nice to talk with her again. Though she had gotten so caught up in the memories of Haven that she hadn't tried to convince Blake to give up where to find Adam.

Ruby left her tent to go sit with Sun, grabbing one of her own rations on the way out.

"Morning, are you as sick of eating rations as I am." Sun said as she approached.

"Oh Yeah, I brought some junk food with me, but it didn't last long. I thought this would be a much shorter mission than it turned out to be." Ruby seated herself nearby.

"I would love some junk food right now. I don't remember the last time I ate something that was bad for me." After a pause, his tail perked up and he said, "What if, the next time we go to a White Fang compound we look around and help ourselves to their junk food?"

Ruby liked the sound of that, "I like the sound of that, and If we find any cookies, they're mine."

"Deal, now I kind of want to get going. But Blake's still sleeping."

"Well I'm not ready to go yet."

They went back to eating for a moment, then Sun said, "So, is it weird for you to see Blake after so long?" Over the years, Sun had tried to assuage Blake's certainty that her friends hated her for leaving. No amount of assurances or gently spoken words that made logical sense would convince Blake that her friends would forgive her. But after Ruby had gone to sleep, Blake had brought up how Ruby's non-hostile welcome had made her hope there was a chance for forgiveness.

Ruby glanced at Sun, "Yeah, its weird." She didn't say anything for a while after that. At first Sun thought that was all she was going to say, when she did speak, he realized she had been carefully thinking about what to add, "Sometimes I hoped I would never see her again, other times I wanted to see her just so that I could yell at her."

That wasn't quite what Sun had wanted to hear, but he couldn't fault Ruby for it.

"What about now?"

Ruby let out a sigh, "I haven't decided yet. Somewhere in between, I guess."

Setting his food aside, Sun turned to face Ruby, "Look, I'm not gonna tell you to forgive her or say that what she did was okay. That's up to you. But I am going to tell you that Blake genuinely believes what she did was the best thing for you guys. She didn't run away to protect herself. It was because she knew that being around anyone would make them a target to Adam. She told me that's why he cut Yang's arm off and he would have done worse."

Ruby had been expecting some kind of confrontation about Blake's departure from team RWBY, but she had imagined it would be with Blake, not Sun.

"I believe you, but I would rather hear that from Blake. And there are some things I need to say to her."

"Fair enough, I just needed to say that for Blake's sake. Speaking of which, I should wake her up, she'll be mad I didn't do it sooner." Sun got up and went over to his and Blake's tent.

With the conversation over, Ruby couldn't help but think about what her relationship with Blake should be going forward. It was like she told Sun: she couldn't figure out how to feel about Blake. She hadn't forgiven her for running away, but she couldn't pretend Blake was a bad person, especially after what Sun said.

After waking Blake, she and Sun joined Ruby around the ashes of the fire. While she ate, Sun brought her up to speed with the plan to commandeer the White Fangs snacks. Blake thought it was a good idea, she looked forward to eating something that tasted good. A few minutes later, they were all packed and ready to move on to the second to last base.

* * *

I'm not crazy about how this chapter turned out, and it took me way too long to finish. I had every intention to post this sooner but I underestimated how much trouble I would have with it.

Thanks for reading, sorry it takes me so long to make updates. As always, feedback is appreciated.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Almost three days had passed since Blake, Sun, and Ruby had set out together. The first day had nearly finished with nothing remarkable happening. In fact, Ruby was still trying to decide if her brief interaction with Blake had really been significant at all.

Much like the first night, the three had sat around a campfire idly eating while they enjoyed each other's company. However there had been no morose conversations or probing questions that had been set aside for years. Sun had let out a stream of constant jokes varying in quality, causing Ruby and Blake to laugh, glare, smile, or even contribute their own joke as well.

When the fire was burning low and all topics of conversation had been exhausted Sun excused himself to sleep, before he left, Blake mentioned she would join him soon.

She had been hoping for an opportunity to get Ruby alone, and now was that time. She was nervous. She had spent a long time thinking about what to say to Ruby, to somehow convey her feelings and thought process behind leaving RWBY. Prior to seeing her again, Blake had thought she was ready for this moment. She had thought of every possible scenario, every possible reaction to what she said, even going so far as to practice the tone of her voice for the emotional parts. But all of that painstakingly planned and rehearsed preparation had fallen to pieces the night Ruby had been standing in front of her, holding out a hand.

All the words in her head seemed so insignificant now. She had spent the whole day quietly trying to reorganize them in such a way that would completely dissolve the hatred and anger that Ruby must feel toward her. When she had finally settled on the perfect thing to say, she would realize it was horrible and start again.

It had only been a handful of seconds since Sun left, neither of them had spoken, Ruby had been watching Blakes normally unemotive face shift to something resembling deep thought, "What are you thinking so hard about?"

Blake blinked and focused on Ruby, she considered bringing up what she had really been thinking about. This was the moment she had been waiting for, as she opened her mouth, that familiar feeling of self-doubt clamped a hand over it, instead she said, "I was just thinking about how few bases are left. It'll be nice to be done with this. Though I still have to worry about the White Fang in the rest of the world." She sounded tired.

In a much more vibrant tone, Ruby said, "Wanna know what I'm gonna do after this?"

"What?" Blake asked, not sure where this was going.

"I need to find Adam and kill him. Too bad I can't seem to find anyone to help me with that, so who knows how long it will take or if I'll even be in time to stop him." There was just a tiny trace of vitriol in her voice.

When Blake didn't respond, she added, "After that, I'm gonna go to Patch and do nothing for at least a couple weeks. I'll check in on Yang and see what she's been up to." A look of warmth spread over her face, "That'll be nice, I haven't seen her in a while, but neither have you huh." Ruby kept her eyes fixed on Blake, hoping for a reaction. Part of her knew she should stop. There was no sense in taunting Blake, and it wasn't going to help get Adam's location out of her, but she didn't want to stop.

Blake opened her mouth and closed it, she steeled herself and said, "I tried to see her once." Her timid words caught Ruby by surprise.

Ruby pursed her lips, "She never mentioned that. I wonder why?"

For the first time since mentioning Yang, Blake looked at Ruby directly, her amber eyes were startling against the darkness behind her, "I thought you wanted to talk about finding Adam."

Ruby leaned forward, "Alright, we'll talk about Yang some other time. Now, will you _please_ tell me where Adam is?"

"No. I already told you: I have to be the one to kill him."

Ruby restrained herself and said in the calmest tone possible, "And why is that?"

"I have my reasons." Was Blakes infuriating response.

"Are those reasons more important than the people who will die when he attacks?"

Both of their expressions were hard as stone, a few seconds crawled by before Blake stood and went to her tent.

* * *

That exchange had been on Ruby's mind the entire day. It frustrated her, after all her carful deliberation she still couldn't understand why Blake was holding back. The answer to the question that had been driving her for the last few weeks was right in front of her, held hostage inside Blakes head. Along with the old wounds made when she left, this refusal to give up valuable information that would ultimately save hundreds of lives and impede Salem was just another reason to be angry with her.

Seeing the sun nearly gone, Ruby felt a small amount of relief. These last few days had been particularly hot, and she was eager to finally feel the cool night air wash over her. A break from the constant walking would be great too. Using her semblance, Ruby sped ahead of Sun and Blake, then set up her tent in a flurry of rose pedals. She was just getting the fire started when they caught up to her.

Sun had been watching how quickly she had been able to set up her tent and said, "I don't suppose you could do our tent too?"

"Not a chance." She didn't even shift her attention off the fire.

Blake had dutifully started the process and said, "Its not that bad, we would almost be done if you had been helping me from the beginning."

"Alright, fine. Hand me the stakes." He stretched out a hand.

When Blake placed them in his palm, he didn't seem to notice. There was a far off look in Sun's eye and he said, "Wait a second."

Two of Sun's clones appeared, one took the stakes from his hand while the other took over for Blake. Sun stared as his clones set about finishing the tent, "How did it take me so long to think of this." He asked of no one specifically, but Blake answered, "I don't know, I thought you would have figured it out sooner. Better late than never." She patted him on the shoulder.

Walking over to Ruby, Blake was anxious, remembering the previous night.

"There we go." A small flame had sprung up from the tinder, Ruby scooched back from the fire and used her pack as a pillow. Her eyes lazily watched as Blake sat down a few feet away.

Sun joined them not long after and noticed the tangible silence, "You two are being awfully quiet." He sat next to Blake.

"oh, yeah, I guess so." Blake said.

Ruby sat up, "Well, I've had something on my mind lately, and I was waiting for you to sit down with us." Blake flashed a nervous glance at her, Ruby either didn't notice or didn't acknowledge it, "I've been thinking about how to handle the last bases: it would be easiest for me to just shoot the lieutenant, right?"

Blake relaxed and said, "That's fine for the lieutenant but we still need to destroy their warehouse."

Sun looked at Ruby quizzically, "Don't you need to ask the lieutenant where to find Adam too?"

She didn't respond for a second, then remembered Sun didn't know Blake knows where Adam is, "Oh right, the heat must be frying my brain. How about me and Blake take care of the lieutenant while you plant the bomb?"

Blake looked at her, "That could work, but it would require you to be stealthy, and as far as I know, that's not something you excel at." From what she could remember, Ruby had never been one for subtlety.

Ruby grinned, "I'll have you know that I can be stealthy, not only did I learn from Ren, but he said I was, 'Pretty good, when you try to be'." She crossed her arms, feeling just a hint of smugness. Truth be told, she found the slow approach incredibly tedious and almost always unnecessary.

Blake nodded once, "Okay, we'll handle the lieutenant while Sun plants the bomb. Normally, I'll climb to the top of whatever building the lieutenant is in, then Sun detonates the bomb and I jump onto them when they rush to see what's going on. Since you need to talk to the lieutenant, we can subdue them and ask about Adam. Hopefully the rest of the White Fang will be too busy with the warehouse to notice."

"That ought to work, but you're forgetting something." Sun looked from Blake and Ruby, who seemed confused as to what he was referring to. He watched as Ruby's face lit up and she said, "Operation Sugar Rush! wow I'm just forgetting everything today." She leaned forward, taking on a more official air, "What are we going to do about that?"

"I suppose I could wander by the cafeteria on my way out of the base." He said nonchalantly.

Ruby let out a noise that Blake interpreted as joyful.

Blake voiced her own excitement in a more reserved way, she also said, "But you should be careful, I'd hate to have to go back to Kuo Kuana and explain how you died trying to get a cupcake."

"I know, you've only told me to be careful a billion times already. Anyway, how long until we get there?" Sun asked while he pulled open one of his rations.

"We should be there tomorrow night." Blake said as she took out the file containing info on each base.

"What do we have to look forward to?" Ruby looked on inquiringly.

Blakes eyes scanned the page, "Her name is Denna, and she was recently promoted to the position. It says that she worked her way through the ranks quickly by being a model soldier and activist."

"annee fyer sord tipe wepins?" Sun asked through a mouthful of food.

A giggle escaped from Ruby, unfazed Blake said, "Nope, no fire-swords, no absurd bodycount. Should be easy enough."

Sun swallowed, "That's good, maybe she'll even tell you where Adam is." He motioned to Ruby.

She nodded, "I hope so. The longer it takes to find him the more likely I'll be too late to stop whatever he's planning." It was really Salem's plan, Adam is just her pawn, but Ruby wasn't going to explain that, "I don't even want to think about how I'll feel if I don't get to him in time." She eyed Blake as loudly as one can.

"Relax, I'm sure everything will turn out fine in the end."

* * *

As predicted, the three companions saw the silhouette of the second to last base the next night. There weren't any nerves, they had done this too many times to be anxious, that doesn't mean they weren't cautious. Using the shadows and natural cover provided by the desert, they made their way to a secluded spot overlooking the base. Ruby had been disappointed to learn they were going to wait until they confirmed the lieutenant was present before beginning the attack.

"We're in the middle of a desert, where else would they be?" She asked, partially frustrated and a little embarrassed, the possibility of the lieutenant being gone while she had attacked a base had never crossed her mind.

Blake answered her, "He and I have already had that discussion before, and we decided this makes more sense, _right_?" Sun nodded and said, "Yep, you're right. Waiting makes more sense. Rushing in was a bad idea. And you agreed to not bring it up anymore." Ruby had never heard Sun sound embarrassed before, it was entertaining.

Time proceeded slowly after that.

Long silences were interrupted by Ruby asking, "Is that her?" whenever she saw someone that looked vaguely like the lieutenant. She and Sun would have small bickering sessions about things like: "What animal does that truck look like?" or "A million lien, but…"

Things came to an end when Sun finally saw her a little after three hours.

Blake confirmed it was her, causing Ruby to let out a quiet, "Yay."

"Alright, let's go." Sun said, also glad to finally be doing something.

Blake and Sun hugged, they also ignored Ruby's gagging noises during their kiss.

Blake watched Sun start going in the direction of the warehouse, then she turned to Ruby and asked, "Are you ready?" she nodded and asked Blake her own question, "Am I supposed to follow you, or can I take the lead?"

She paused to think about it, "You can. I'm curious as to what a stealthy Ruby looks like." A small smile accompanied the sentence.

"Alright, try to keep up." Ruby replied with her own smile.

Blake hadn't known what Ruby meant by that, but it soon became apparent. While Blake had to run from cover to cover, Ruby would simply use her semblance. She tried her best to keep up, but Ruby was just too fast.

After Ruby made it over the fence she stopped to wait for Blake behind a cluster of barrels. A little bit later, Blake managed to vault over the fence, she crept over to Ruby and whispered, "That's cheating."

Ruby suppressed a laugh and said, "I can explain why it isn't cheating later, right now we need to do something about them." She pointed at a pair of guards standing directly in the path to the building they needed to be on top of.

Blake didn't even need to think about it, "I can take the one on the left and you get right. Then we hide them back here."

Ruby looked at her, "When you say take them, what do you mean exactly?" She had a feeling, but it was better to make sure.

Blake motioned to Gambol shroud.

"I like to avoid killing when I can, and this seems like one of those times."

Blake thought back on the night they met and all the White Fang sprawled over the concrete. She considered saying 'But they wouldn't hesitate to kill you, or any human.' Instead of that she said, "You're the leader. What should we do?"

"Choke them out, everything will be over before they wake up."

It would be easier to kill them. But Blake had agreed to follow Ruby, and she wasn't going to begrudge her for avoiding killing, "Okay, I'll get the left one."

Ruby checked to make sure the guards were still looking away, then she and Blake snuck up behind them. When Ruby moved so did Blake, they both wrapped an arm around their guard's throat and put a hand over their mouth. There was a brief struggle, but they soon hid the pair from sight.

Standing over the guards and breathing heavier than before, Blake said, "I'm assuming that's not the first time you've done that?" She had forgotten how demanding choking someone out was.

"Nope, the first time didn't go well. I'll tell you and Sun about it some other time." She turned to size up the building, "We need to climb that now?"

Blake nodded, "After you."

Ruby beat Blake to the top, just barely. Because Ruby had used some of her aura during their infiltration of the base, she wanted to save the rest, just to be safe. So, they had both scaled the building using just their own strength and speed.

Were this a less serious situation, Ruby would have taken some time to gloat, but they needed to be ready for Sun's signal.

Both girls walked over to the edge of the building that gave them a view of where the lieutenant would leave.

"How long does it usually take for him to get the bomb setup?" Ruby asked.

"Maybe three minutes, it shouldn't take long." They were both looking out at the dark expanse hoping to spot the signal.

Keeping her eyes forward Ruby asked, "Have you reconsidered telling me where Adam is?" Intent on looking for Sun's signal, she didn't even have to try to keep the edge out of her voice.

Blake almost looked over at her, "I haven't changed my mind, why do you ask?"

"I just wanted to check. Since you won't tell me, I might as well ask the lieutenant if she knows where he is."

There was a lull, then Blake said, "Fair enough." The next minute and a half passed in silence.

They saw Sun's signal at the same time, not long after, there was a thunderous noise followed by the transformation of the warehouse into a blazing inferno. Blake stepped onto the ledge and told Ruby to do the same.

The lieutenant ran out from the building, flanked by a pair of guards. Seeing this, Ruby and Blake jumped down from where they stood. Ruby slowed her descent by firing Crescent Rose once, and Blake let her aura absorb some of the shock while also rolling to diminish it.

Blake sighted and shot at the lieutenant's legs, dropping her to the ground. Ruby fired two quick shots, one for each guard.

The lieutenant was loudly muttering obscenities while she shifted around on the ground, when she caught sight of Ruby and Blake she started to yell for help. Ruby had been near Blake one second, and in the next she had clamped a hand over the woman's mouth while the other pressed a knife to her throat.

The lieutenant went rigid, the threat of the knife was unsettling, but the pure malice that swam in Ruby's eyes was terrifying.

Her voice was like a gust in the dead of night, "I'm going to ask you a question. When I take my hand off your mouth you won't scream or beg, you'll stay quiet and answer it to the best of your ability. Understood?"

* * *

It's been a while since I updated this, instead of writing out a long explanation I'll summarize; college is hard, writing is hard, I'm easily distracted, and the Division 2 is fun. I'd like to say that long breaks between updates are going to stop, but I don't see that happening, sorry. I would like to update it more regularly, but it just isn't feasible.

I like how this chapter turned out, and I think the next one is going to be good too.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. As always, feedback is welcome.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The lieutenant hadn't known where Adam was, and Sun didn't find any cookies. This put Ruby in a foul mood, and she couldn't decide which was more devastating. While there were no cookies, Sun had found a fair amount of other sugary treats that would tide her over for a few days, so the mission hadn't been a complete failure. Working with Blake had also been nice, but she wasn't going to admit that to anyone, especially herself.

Over the years, Ruby had built up a new version of Blake. She was selfish and absent of any remorse, but this imaginary Blake wasn't anything like the real Blake. She was still the same calm, intelligent girl that Ruby had known during their time at Beacon. In the years they had been apart, she had matured into a confident woman, who dedicated herself to the betterment of faunus throughout Remnant. The warped version of her in Ruby's head wasn't even close to accurate.

Ruby had spent the last six years thinking that Blake left team RWBY to save her own skin. Yang was her goofy over-protective sister, and Blake had been her reserved book-loving sister. They had trained together, shared books with each other, talked about which steel they liked best or which combat skirt Ruby looked best in and everything in between. Ruby believed what Sun had told her, Blake's heart had been in the right place. She should be overjoyed to learn that one of her closest friends wasn't a heartless coward, but she wasn't. Even if Blake's motivation was good, she still left. Team RWBY had been like a family and Blake had abandoned them. Part of Ruby was desperate to be friends with Blake again, but she knew that rebuilding the trust they had had would take time.

There was also the matter of her withholding Adam's location. The more Ruby thought about it the more it bothered her. She had been contemplating what would keep Blake from telling her, and the only explanation was that she was protecting Adam. But that was insane, Adam had nearly killed her and Yang. It was the only explanation that made sense, but she couldn't convince herself Blake would do that.

It was all quite frustrating. And the only way to resolve it would be to talk with Blake, but Ruby didn't know if she was ready for that.

* * *

Blake lay still, all her attention directed at the sleep-soaked whispers of Ruby. She had started muttering snippets of sentences a few minutes ago and Blake was trying to piece together the dream she was having. She hadn't come up with anything specific, but she was certain it wasn't a good dream.

There was a lull, then Blake heard a sharp intake of breath. Not long after she heard Ruby moving around, then the distinct noise of a tent door being unzipped.

Blake sat up and pulled a jacket on. When she opened the front of her tent and looked out, she saw Ruby standing in a sweater and flannel pants, craning her neck to look at the sparkling stars.

Blake stepped out of her tent and went over to her, "Hey."

Ruby jumped and whirled around.

Blake blurted, "Shit, sorry I didn't mean to scare you."

After some calming breaths, Ruby said, "It's okay, what are you doing up anyway?"

It was only now that Blake realized Ruby might not appreciate someone eavesdropping on her dreams. But it was a little late to back out now, "I um, I heard you talking in your sleep. Then I heard you leave your tent, so I wanted to check on you."

For a moment Ruby looked like she would try to deny it, then she said, "I have bad dreams sometimes, I'll be fine after I get some air." Ruby put her back to Blake, making it clear that was the end of this interaction, but Blake stayed.

She considered asking what the dream had been about, then thought it better not to, then she did it anyway, "What was it about?"

The nightmares had started after she saw Pyrrah killed. That moment had haunted her for years. But it was the same dream every time, she grew accustomed to it. She would run to the top of Beacon tower just in time to almost save her. The Haven dreams were worse because there were multiple; in the first one, she would be trapped by a burning building, but still able to see her friends be killed with no way of helping them. In the second dream she would be reliving a good memory, halfway through it her friends would turn on her, asking why she abandoned them, or blaming her for not saving Pyrrah. But the worst was when she relived the truth: her friends were dead because she hadn't been able to save them.

As if dreams reminding her of her failure to save the people she cared about weren't enough, she was plagued by dreams of the people she killed. They centered around a specific moment where she had taken another person's life. Most of the time she would relive the moment in all its grisly details and that would be the end of it. In rare cases they depicted a very twisted version of events, causing her to wake up in a cold sweat, breathing heavily, with a wild look in her eyes. Luckily, they didn't happen often.

Ruby looked back at Blake, "The night Haven fell." Her voice was hollow, and she didn't continue. Both girls just stood there in an uncertain silence.

On top of checking to see if Ruby was okay, Blake realized how good of an opportunity this would be for just the two of them to talk, specifically for her to try to apologize for everything. After all that time agonizing over the right things to say, she had decided that there was no perfect arrangement of words that would absolve her of Ruby's anger. Her best option was to just say what she felt in the moment and hope.

Blake pressed on despite Ruby's obvious refusal to expand on her dream, "Do you want to talk about it?"

There had been a time where she wouldn't have hesitated to confide in Blake, but that wasn't the case now, "Not with you." The words came out harsher than she intended, Blake didn't know it, but she was the only person Ruby had admitted to having bad dreams.

There was an almost imperceptible change in Blake's demeanor and Ruby quickly tried to repair the damage, "That came out worse than I meant." She did mean it, but she shouldn't have said it and her sleep addled mind wasn't up to filtering her less than polite thoughts, "Not right now is what I should have said."

Blake made a poor attempt at a smile, "It's alright."

Ruby was relieved when Blake brushed off the comment, then she saw the smile fall away and Blake said, "No, I'm sick of this. Nothing is alright." Blake steeled herself, "I know you must hate me, and it's all my fault, but I want to fix that. Just give me a chance to apologize for everything, please."

Blake couldn't decipher the look Ruby was giving her, after some time she took a breath and said, "My sister is missing an arm because she saved your life from your asshole terrorist ex-boyfriend, and you repay her by running away. Now she's a fucking alcoholic just scraping by. Jaune, Nora, Ren and who knows how many other people are dead because of that same asshole terrorist. I've been in this desert for, I don't remember how many weeks, looking for him, then _I save your life_ and find out you know where he is, but you won't tell me." It felt nice to get all of this off her chest. From the way Blake's ears were drooping it was having the opposite effect on her.

Even though Blake had tried to prepare herself for this outcome, it still hurt more than she had imagined.

Ruby's voice was growing in volume and some emotion was bleeding into her words, "I hated you for six years. But I still missed you, that night I saved you I thought about letting the lieutenant kill you, but I didn't. I wanted to see you again, I wanted to see if I was right about you. And I'm so glad I was wrong. I want us to be friends again, so you better make this the best apology of your life."

Blake felt like her heart had been pulled apart and put back together again. The first thing that came out of her mouth was, "Yang's an alcoholic?"

Ruby crossed her arms, "That doesn't sound like an apology."

Moments ago, Blake had been in a state of despair, now there was a sliver of hope that she clung to. Her words came slowly at first, then they poured out of her like water from a burst dam, "I'm sorry for leaving, but I don't regret it. Team RWBY was the first time I felt like I had a family, I loved each of you, and I still do, even if you don't. The night Beacon fell, Adam told me that he was going to destroy everything I loved, he was about to kill me when Yang came to save me, but it cost her arm. I managed to get us out of there before he could finish us off, but that scared me more than anything ever has. It could have been so much worse, and I didn't want the same to happen to you or Weiss, so I left." Ruby's face gave nothing away, she was the picture of an attentive audience.

"It was the hardest decision of my life, but I wanted to make sure you guys would be safe, and the only way to do that was for me to leave." She took a tentative breath, "I'm sorry for running, but it was all for you three, I wanted to know you would be okay."

Through the fog of pent-up anger Ruby could see Blake really believed running had been the best option.

"I believe you, but don't think that your completely forgiven. You were like a sister to me, and that isn't going to come back overnight."

"I understand." Gratitude washed over Blake. Even though this wasn't the best possible outcome, she knew it could have been so much worse.

"Before you think this is over, I have to ask you something."

It wasn't hard to figure out what else Ruby wanted to know, "Adam?"

For a moment Ruby looked worried about what she was going to say, then she took a breath and asked, "Are you protecting Adam?"

Blake was taken aback, "What are you talking about?"

"You keep refusing to tell me where he is, and I can't figure out why. The only thing that makes sense is that you're trying to protect him."

Blake started her usual response without even thinking about it, "It's compl-" Ruby's words tore through Blake's, "No! I want to know the truth. I already told you that I don't trust you, and this isn't helping anything. Fuck your pride, fuck your vendetta, fuck whatever's keeping you from telling me. You're going to tell me where he is right now. And you're going to explain why you've been keeping it a secret."

Panic replaced gratitude; she had been dreading this eventuality almost as much as their talk of her leaving. She tripped over the words, barely managing to get them out, "I-I… don't… know where he is."

All the fire in Ruby was extinguished, "What?"

Blake forced herself to explain, "I don't know where he is. I used to know, but that was months ago. I'm sure he's moved on by now."

Ruby's jaw clenched and she was silent for a few moments, "I don't know what to say."

Blake couldn't think of what to say either, so she remained quiet.

Some time passed before Ruby spoke, "Why did you say you knew where he was?" She didn't sound angry, but Blake was probably imagining that.

"I didn't want you to leave. I thought that if I said I knew where Adam was, you would stick around, and I could try to work up the courage to apologize for everything. I've been feeling guilty about lying to you ever since." Her momentary glimpse at a possible renewed friendship was quickly fading, and it was all her fault, yet again.

A minute passed before Ruby spoke, "You really knew where he was?"

Blake had retreated into herself, patiently waiting for Ruby's outrage, in her cool monotone voice she said, "He was at an abandoned Dust refining factory in Vacuo."

"Do you really want him dead?" Ruby sounded numb. All her anger had gone away, now she was just left with questions. Most for Blake, and one for herself.

A small amount of Blake's rage managed to break the surface of her despair, "Yes. I hate him."

Ruby looked over at Blake, "If you knew where he was and want to kill him, why didn't you?"

Blake was loath to admit the truth, but she couldn't lie now, Ruby didn't deserve that, "I'm afraid."

That caught Ruby's attention, Blake continued, "I hate him more than anything. There were nights I would sneak out and make myself go after him, but eventually I would realize how stupid I was being. I know that I can't beat him alone, but I don't want to ask anyone to help me because I don't want what happened to Yang to happen again." Blake felt her eyes watering and she sniffled, "I'm afraid of Yang too. But I'd give anything to see her, to try to make it up to her. That time I said I tried to see her again, I ran away because I knew she wouldn't want to see me. Why would she?" She wiped her eyes and would have accepted it if Ruby walked away.

She felt Ruby embrace her and the dampness at the corner of her eyes turned to full on tears. She didn't deserve this affection. Despite everything that she had done, Ruby was putting it aside to comfort her.

Apologies started tumbling out of Blake's mouth before she realized what she was doing, "I'm sorry for running away, I'm sorry for what happened to Yang, I'm sorry about Adam, I'm sorry for lying to you. I'm so sorry." Blake hated how flimsy her words sounded. But that was all she could say.

Ruby squeezed her a little tighter, "It's okay. But I need you to promise me something."

She had asked herself if she still wanted to be friends with Blake after all of this, and she had been surprised by how absolutely certain she was. Blake had made mistakes, but she had meant well. After hearing what she had to say for herself, Ruby could finally cut away the hostile feelings that she had been moored to for so long. She looked forward to a future where she and Blake were friends again. Too many things had changed for them to go back to how they had been at Beacon. But Ruby was going to make damn sure that they were close.

"Whatever you want." She meant it.

"After we go to the last base, I want you to go to Patch and see Yang. I think she would like to see you. I also want you to remember that you don't need to run away from things that scare you, you've got friends like me to help you."

Blake didn't hesitate, "I promise."

* * *

It's been a while since I updated this, sorry about that. I feel like I say that a lot, but I do mean it. I spent a long time on this chapter because I have been thinking about how I wanted this moment to go down from the first day I had the idea for this story, and I'm not thrilled with how it turned out. I like it, but I can't help but feel like it could have been better.

Instead of procrastinating and agonizing over every little detail, I'm gonna get started on the next chapter real soon, and I'm gonna finish the other one shot fics that I have been sitting on for way too long.

Thanks for reading, I hope you like it. This is supposed to be a really significant chapter and I want to know what other people think about it.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Weiss had gone to bed early the previous night, meaning she had plenty of energy when she woke up. As usual her alarm clock hadn't gone off yet, instead of laying around she opted to get started on her routine. She sat up and checked the notifications on her scroll to make sure nothing urgent had happened. She gave a casual menacing glare to the camera in the corner of her room. Most days she was good at ignoring it, but that had taken some time. Miss Tipota had it installed shortly after she was hired and used the justification of, "We need to keep an eye on you at all times to make sure you're safe." Weiss had wanted to protest but she knew that wouldn't do any good.

She pushed it from her mind and walked to her dresser.

Seconds after she was finished getting ready, a polite knock came from the other side of her door. She recognized it as Miss Tipota's knock. This was either going to be a polite exchange of hello's or Weiss was going to be reprimanded for something. She took one last look in the mirror to make sure everything was as it should be; she had opted for some black pumps with white tights, a light gray skirt that was flirtier than she typically wore, and a baby-blue sweater that she found impossibly comfortable.

'Damn I look good.' She smirked at herself then went to the door.

Even though Weiss knew who was behind the door she was still disappointed when she opened it. Miss Tipota wore the same outfit and expression she did every day, it wasn't a bad look, but Weiss couldn't understand how she didn't get tired of it. Miss Tipota gave her a subtle once over and simply said, "Good morning Miss Schnee, you're up early."

Weiss couldn't detect any malice, so she chose to play nice too, "Good morning to you as well, is everything ready?" She was referring to the car and Miss Tipota's security team.

"Indeed. We can leave as soon as you want."

"I'll get my scroll and we can go."

* * *

When her father had decided to tear down the old headquarters and build a new one, he struggled with choosing between leaving it on the ground or having it in the air, then he decided to make it so massive that it was effectively both. From the hundredth floor up everything had been constructed as though it were a mobile building that could move freely through the sky, with numerous landing pads and docking bays as well as a handful of sky bridges and assorted safety measures. You would think that the lower half would have been made in a more conservative manner considering how expensive the top portion was, but no. Jacques had bought the surrounding buildings and had them torn down to make sure the headquarters would take up more space than necessary, though some of the space was justified because of how sturdy the support system needed to be. The lower half had been ornamented with elaborate glass work and a smattering of silver structures that were purely aesthetic.

Every time Weiss saw the building she had to fight from rolling her eyes because she knew that it had cost a quarter of her families fortune. All because Jacques wanted to assert his wealth to everyone in Atlas. Since it had been built, the cost had been recouped, but the audacity of it still set Weiss on edge.

One of the guards opened the front entrance for Weiss and she walked through. Beyond the mostly glass entrance was a circus of people, there were stations set up to deal with different services like paying a bill, making an order, customer service, etc. Hundreds of people in suits bustled around searching for people or places they needed to be, outside there was a steady stream of vehicles coming and going, on the ground and in the air. There weren't many faunus, the few that were there were working at counters or running errands for the people in suits.

Because of the height of the structure, elevators were the primary means of getting to where you needed to be. Most of the elevators were arranged neatly on one end of the building, but there were small clusters that were designed to get people who all needed to go to a specific spot simultaneously, then there was a small entrance that led to the private elevators for the most important people, of which Weiss was.

On the ride up the two bodyguards quietly exchanged words about a sporting event that had been on TV last night, and Miss Tipota maintained her silence.

After reaching her floor, Weiss and her entourage disembarked the elevator and headed for one of the break rooms. Calling it a break room was almost insulting. The lobby was the size of Weiss's room and it was furnished with some of the most luxurious furniture and decorations in Atlas. From there, doorways led to different rooms, there was a state-of-the-art gym and pool, private meeting rooms, bedrooms if someone wanted to sleep, and a food court. Weiss had once heard in passing that it cost half a million lien a day to maintain the building, luckily the company brought in much more than that.

Weiss made for the coffee machine, the attendant-a faunus who she saw regularly- noticed her and began making her usual.

She stepped up to the counter, the attendant smiled and said, "Good morning Miss Schnee, did you want your regular?" She always did.

She smiled politely, "Good morning Josh, that would be lovely. Thank you."

A moment later she was walking away holding her piping hot cup of coffee. It might not matter, but Weiss tried to be friendly towards faunus she encountered because of her family's reputation. Feeling guilty for how she had treated them when she was younger also proved to be a strong motivator.

From there, they took another elevator up to the floor with Weiss's office on it. This floor was dedicated to the more successful salespeople, but that also meant it was sparsely populated because they were out trying to make sales. Weiss strolled through the halls paying no mind to her forced company and the people she passed.

At this point the guards and Miss Tipota were all familiar with Weiss's morning ritual and stationed themselves at the door to her office while she went inside.

Her shoes clacked against the floor as she stepped toward the expanse of Atlas, she took a sip of her coffee. Her chest puffs up as she takes a deep breath of the circulated air infused with the odor of thousands of people she can't stand, she exhales and mutters, "Any day now, Ruby."

* * *

Weiss's cup was almost empty when she heard the door open and Whitley's voice, "There you are, if I didn't know any better, I would think you didn't want anyone to find you." She heard the soft rhythm of his shoes contacting the floor as he came to stand beside her. He gave her a smile but it didn't reach his eyes. Whitely was as tall as their father now, Weiss looked up at him as she spoke, "That's ridiculous, you should know I come here almost every morning. Why were you looking for me?" She finished off her coffee, visits from Whitley always signaled the end of a simple day.

"Not even a friendly 'hello' for your dear brother? did father never tell you to try to get acquainted with the people you work with?" He wore a subtle grin now.

"I think you and I are well acquainted by now, seeing as you've known me your entire life and I've known you for most of mine." She wasn't in the mood for his version of small talk, she couldn't remember ever being in the mood for it.

He clasped his hands behind his back and looked out the window, "I suppose you're right. I came to see you because father and I are going to Mistral to check on some projects and meet with clients, which means we don't have time to do our third quarter reports. Would you mind getting them done today?" He looked at her with what almost passed for a genuine look of questioning concern.

Weiss almost let out a tired sigh, he wouldn't have come here if he didn't want something. Doing someone else's work hadn't been in Weiss's plans for the day, but she had been asked to do more difficult tasks in the past.

"Sure, it's no trouble at all." Weiss responded in her best imitation of polite indifference.

"Fantastic, I'll be sure to get you a souvenir while I'm in Mistral." His eyes shift to a point thousands of meters away, a few seconds pass before he said, "I see why you come here in the mornings, it's nice to look out over our city."

She nods, "It helps remind me why I'm here."

Seconds pass while the siblings stare out at their own horizons.

Whitely broke the silence, "I should be going. I'll have my secretary send you the files. Nice seeing you, Weiss."

* * *

It was half past seven and Weiss was within eyesight of the end of Whitley and her father's reports. She was slouching forward idly typing away, stopping every so often to take a bite of her sandwich. and her guards had chosen to remain seated outside of the meeting room that Weiss had taken for herself. By now most everyone else had gone home, save for a handful of people in a similar position as Weiss and the night crew.

She finished the last few lines and sent them to Whitley's secretary. She raised her arms in a silent cheer, then slouched back in her chair to stare at the ceiling.

Being done was great, but it wasn't like she had anything more pressing to be doing. She could train, get a proper dinner, then go to sleep just to do it all again the next day.

She began to collect her few belongings, a laptop, her bag, and she tossed the packaging for her food in the garbage. She had spent all day at work and wanted to relax, but what? Looking around the room didn't yield any ideas, though she was sick of the muted gray walls and artificial lighting of the meeting room. She peered out into the night and saw lights of ships flying here and there, that wasn't any help.

It wasn't until Weiss and her entourage were riding the elevator to the ground floor that she had an idea, taking out her scroll she texted Mika, her favorite masseuse.

Upon getting home, Weiss went straight to her room and changed into some comfortable clothes. She let the guard at the front gate know she was expecting a woman around nine and to let her in. After she had a small fire going, she took a cursory glance around her room to make sure it was pristine, and then she resigned herself to waiting.

Not long after a soft knock came from her door. She opened it to find a woman with dark red hair cascading down her back carrying a folding massage table and a bag. She wore a navy blue jacket, white sweater, and black pants.

"Hey, how's it going?" she says cheerily.

"Ugh, I'll tell you in a minute, come on in." Weiss ushers her inside, eager for both her massage, and the company of someone that she doesn't detest.

* * *

The steady buzzing of Taiyang's scroll managed to pull his attention away from the TV drama he was watching, the caller ID showed Yang and he stared at the screen for a moment. He had gotten a handful of calls at this time of night from the bartender when she passed out, but never from her.

He decided to be optimistic, "Hello?"

"Hey, I'm at Paul's and was wondering if you could come get me?" her speech was slightly slurred, but she wasn't unconscious which was a nice change.

"Yeah, I'll be there in a minute." He got up and went to put his shoes on and grab the keys.

"Thanks."

The blinds to Yang's room were down, halting the invasive sunlight and leaving Yang in the dark.

'I miss Ruby.'

It was a common feeling for Yang, but it was hitting her harder than normal today. She hadn't seen her sister in months and the weight of her absence had overwhelmed Yang. She had been checking the time on her scroll every so often, and as it ticked closer to the time she should be getting ready for work, she found that she couldn't convince herself it was worth it. It had been almost two weeks since she had missed a day of work, she was disappointed in herself. She should be better than this. She never missed training or going to a class no matter how much she didn't want to go. But that was because she had been working toward something wonderful, and she had friends to keep encouraging her.

She looked at her scroll one more time and saw that it was a few minutes past when she should have gotten up, but she didn't care. She set her scroll down and re-situated herself in bed.

Her thoughts shifted back to Ruby, she made a point to come back home every few months in between missions, but this was her longest absence yet. There was always the chance that she could have gotten hurt, or worse, but Yang and Tai would have been notified if that were to happen. For whatever reason, Ruby was taking her time to come back.

'She'll show up soon.' Yang shut her eyes to try and sleep.

'Why would she? There isn't anything important to her here anymore.' She wanted to disagree with herself, but she couldn't. Sleep came soon after and it protected her for some time, but she did have to wake up sooner or later.

A myriad of sensations assaulted Yang as she floated from the depths of sleep; a piercing headache, a constant pressure in her bladder, her stomach hurt because of how hungry she was. Taking all of this into account, she found the discomfort to be a strong motivator for getting out of bed. She swung her legs over the side and walked to the bathroom.

After washing her hands, she looked at herself in the mirror, studying the woman she saw with a merciless attention to detail. She still wore her hair extremely long, but somewhere along the way it had lost that bright gold-blond luster, now it was just dull blond hair. She looked tired, her eyes were ordinary, lacking the vibrant lilac and lively spark that had resided in them years ago. She tried to smile; her mouth made the shape but there was no real joy being conveyed.

She dropped the smile and her irises turned a burning red, there was still an ample amount of anger behind them. The only problem was that she was the object of her ire. She was in such a poor state because she had been neglecting herself for years.

Her eyes returned to their usual lilac and she moved her attention to the shower, it wouldn't fix her, but she needed to try harder to be what she wanted to be, and that entailed good hygiene. This moment of intense dissatisfaction with herself had been strong enough to pull her out of the funk she had woken up in. Maintaining that sense of purpose was where she always faltered.

She turned on the shower and undressed, while she waited for it to heat up, she studied her body in the mirror and that drive to improve only grew stronger. She needed to start working out again. She took off her prosthetic and set it aside, it was old and heavily used, 'Maybe I should look into getting a new one soon.' That wouldn't be cheap, so no more skipping work.

She ran a hand under the water and found it satisfactory.

* * *

Standing in her room wearing socks, jeans, and underwear, Yang tried to find a shirt that didn't smell too bad. It proved more difficult than she thought, eventually she found one that was tolerable and threw it on, then she made her way to the kitchen.

She feverishly looked in her cupboards and fridge only to find that she barely had any food, looks like she would be shopping today too. She quickly assembled a bologna sandwich and found an apple that was on the cusp of going bad.

As she ate her breakfast, she took some medicine for her headache and washed everything down with a glass of water. It was at this point, she remembered how today had started. Thinking about Ruby had that effect on her, most of the time she would shrug it off and think about other things, for whatever reason she had been incapable of doing so today. The fact that she had been able to pull herself out of that pit through sheer self-disgust was as encouraging as it was alarming, now she needed to keep going. Which begged the question; what should she do now? The time on her scroll read three 'o nine, working for two hours wouldn't really make a difference, but she could go to the store, definitely do laundry, workout? They were mundane tasks, but that was better than lying in bed neglecting herself.

* * *

It was under a dark sky saturated with pinpricks of stars that Yang trod toward the familiar building of her favorite bar, the piercing headache had lessened thanks to the medicine, but it still hurt. She hadn't had a drink since last night and she could feel the symptoms of withdrawal coming on. A minor feeling of nausea had been building over the last half hour, and it would get worse unless she gave her body what it wanted.

On one of her earlier clean-up-my-life attempts, Yang had researched how to stop being an alcoholic and she had found that most alcoholics needed to gradually lessen the amount they drank in order to safely get rid of their dependency. Her better judgement told her to come here because it would be easier to moderate herself around people, and she couldn't afford to drink as much as she wanted whereas she had a stockpile at home, 'I should probably get rid of that' that would be tough, but if she was serious then it needed to happen sooner rather than later.

It's a weeknight, so there weren't many people inside, a few look up as she walks through the door, most ignore her. She walks up to the bar and takes a seat, a tall man with a brown and gray beard asks, "What can I get ya?"

An amount of drinks later, Yang sets some cash on the counter and walks outside.

She stands in front of the building and pulls her scroll out of her pocket and navigates to her contacts; she taps on her dad's icon.

Not long after making the call, she's sitting in the passenger seat of her dad's truck cruising down the road. When she got in, Yang changed the radio to a pop station and is quietly listening to the song playing while she tries to work up the courage to talk about what she's been thinking about.

"So, how's work?" Tai asks.

"It's okay, but I didn't go today." She tries to sound casual about it.

"How come?" His voice remains level, he just sounds curious.

"I started thinking about Ruby, and…I just miss her a lot."

Some wistfulness creeps into his voice, "So do I. But she should be back any day now. And I don't think she would want you missing work on her account."

"I know, It's just…" This was tough but she needed to talk about these things, otherwise how else was she supposed to move past them, "I wonder if I'm the reason she doesn't come back."

He looks over at her, "You know that's not true. She's busy with hunting is all." His eyes return to the road, "Maybe one day you and her could go on a mission together."

"No, we can't." She sounds certain.

He looks over again, "Sure you can, what's stopping you?"

She holds up her prosthetic arm and wiggles it for emphasis.

He makes a dismissive gesture, "I know you know there are prosthetics designed for hunters, so what's the real reason."

She looks away, "I can't afford any of them."

He doesn't ask why she can't afford them, and she doesn't say because they both know.

It's quiet for a while before Yang says, "When I was looking in the mirror after I woke up, I had this moment of clarity. And I was disgusted with myself. I wish I could say that's the first time I've felt that way about my drinking, but it isn't. I know you and Ruby want me to get better, and I've tried. But it hasn't worked, and I keep struggling to find a reason to stay sober." She took a breath to steady herself, "I want to get better, but trying to do it on my own hasn't worked before, so I was hoping you could help me quit drinking, and maybe get back to training."

"Sure, we can start first thing in the morning."

* * *

I would like to apologize for how long it has taken me to update this story, and I promise that this will be the longest gap between updates. Two months is bad, but four months is ridiculous. The reason it took so long was because I thought this would just be a filler chapter, to remind people that Yang and Weiss are still in this story and that they are doing things too. But my vision for what it should/could be kept changing and I got to be really unsure of what I was writing so it was hard to keep going. Now that it's finished, I'm glad its done but I should have made different choices.

Thanks for reading, constructive criticism is welcome. Once again, I'm sorry for how long this took.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Blake lay nestled next to Sun. She had given up on falling back asleep and spent the last half hour replaying her and Ruby's conversation over and over again. She was still trying to process everything that had been said, and a small part of her was worried that she had dreamt the whole thing.

Fed up by her constant retreading of the same material, she extricated herself from Sun and got dressed. She stepped outside and zipped up the tent as quietly as possible. The moon and stars provided plenty of light to see by, she chose a direction at random and began her meandering walk.

She tried to focus on how peaceful the expanse of sand dunes and distant mesas stretching out around her was. Her eyes drifted up to the glittering sky and she got lost up there. A gentle gust of wind caressed her cheek and pulled at the edges of her clothes, and for a moment she really did forget about everything that was troubling her.

Many footsteps later she found herself at the top of a dune and decided that her reprieve had come to an end. The biggest hurdle to overcome would be seeing Yang. Ruby had said Yang would like to see her but just thinking of showing up after all these years and seeing those lilac eyes turned her legs to jelly. The knowledge that Yang had become an alcoholic had also sent her reeling, she wanted to be there to help and apologize. If Ruby had forgiven her after everything then there was a chance Yang would too. Talking with Ruby had terrified her and talking with Yang would be even worse, but she needed to do it. She wanted to do it. Yang's absence in her life had been like a constant ache, she wanted to fix everything between them more than she had ever wanted anything, including killing Adam.

Her descent from the dune took her nearby the place where she and Ruby had been last night. Her eyes looked over the trod-on sand. Something was amiss, she blinked a few times and stared a little harder. The realization struck her and she was instantly on alert: there was a third pair of footprints mixed with hers and Ruby's. It was possible that they belonged to Sun, but she wasn't going to assume that and return to her tent. She drew Gambol Shroud then crept toward the prints.

Once she got closer, it was clear they didn't belong to Sun on account of them being similarly sized to Ruby and Blakes prints. Someone was following them, for how long she had no idea, but she intended to find out.

The third set of prints broke away from hers and Ruby's and headed in the opposite direction of their camp. She paused to consider following the trail by herself or going back to wake Sun and Ruby. If things turned violent having company would be good, but if the tracks were recent, she should try to find their owner before they got too far away. Weighing the two against each other, she chose to pursue whoever had left them behind.

* * *

Ruby woke up to the sound of Blake and Sun talking, which was odd. Normally she was the first one awake. She rubbed her eyes and sat up, then she started paying attention to what they were saying, it became clear that they weren't talking to each other but asking questions to another person. She hurried to put her clothes and gear on then got out of her tent.

She blinked rapidly against the sudden light and saw both Blake and Sun standing near a sitting figure that had been bound by rope. She was a faunus, indicated by a sand colored tail protruding from her lower back. Her hair was dark brown and cut short, she wore boots, khaki shorts with a matching shirt and vest. Out of arms reach from her was a rifle, pistol, and the contents of her various pockets; spare magazines, rations, some tools, assorted odds and ends. Ruby guessed that she was close to twenty. Her eyes were a washed out pink and they studied Ruby with equal intensity. Her voice was quietly hostile, "Human sack of shit."

"Good morning to you too." Ruby turned to Blake, "Mind catching me up with what's going on?"

"I went for a walk earlier and saw a third pair of footprints with ours, I followed them and found her camped half a mile away. I don't know how long she's been following us, and she hasn't answered any of my questions. I was thinking you might have some questions for her too, maybe she'll answer you."

Ruby crossed her arms and seemed to be weighing how to proceed.

Blake added, "I don't want to take her with us, and I don't think we can trust her to stop following us." The implications of this weren't lost on Ruby, she continued to think. After reaching a decision she went over to the girl and sat in front of her, "My Name's Ruby, what's yours?"

The girl maintained her stony silence.

What's the point, she won't know where he is anyway. She discarded the friendly demeanor and said, "Alright, I'll cut to the chase: do you know where Adam Taurus is?"

The girl looked past Ruby at Blake and Sun, "Are you two really working with a human?" Ruby grabbed her by the chin and turned her head back toward her, "You're talking to me right now. Answer the question." Sun and Blake stood back, curious to see how this progressed.

A teasing smirk wormed its way onto her face, "Of course I know where he is, who do you think told me to follow you."

"Tell me. Tell me now." Ruby couldn't have contained her eagerness if she tried.

With the same smirk she said, "Why would I tell you?"

Ruby grabbed the girl by her shirt, "A lot of innocent people are going to die if you don't."

"Good." The smirk was starting to get on Ruby's nerves, the girl said, "He's going to bring humanity to their knees. All of you fuckers are going to know what it's like to be at the bottom. It doesn't matter if you find him, no one can stop him."

Ruby let the girl go and stood up, she went over to her belongings and picked up the pistol, she checked to make sure it was loaded. She went back to the girl and pushed the muzzle against her forehead, "Tell me."

"Eat shit and die."

Ruby aimed the pistol to the left and fired a shot that passed near the girl's ear.

The air smelled of gunpowder, this time the muzzle was warm against her skin and her right ear was ringing, she remained defiant, "I don't care what you do to me. I'm never going to tell you." Now she wore a maddening smile.

Ruby was furious. Blake saw her shoulders shaking, she watched Ruby kick the girl over and say, "I'm trying to save you! I don't care about this humans against faunus shit. Tell me where he is or we're all going to die!"

The meaning of this was lost on Blake, Sun, and the girl.

From the ground, the girls smile wavered and she asked, "What are you talking about?" Ruby ignored her.

Sun asked, "What are you doing? And what was that 'we're all going to die' about?"

Ruby began to disassemble the pistol, "We're letting her go. I'm making sure she can't attack us." As it came apart, she pocketed the firing pin and threw the rest of the parts in haphazard directions. Next, she picked up the rifle and repeated the process, stopping only to smash the scope with the barrel, making a satisfying crunch.

"Are you sure we should just let her go?" Blake asked.

"Nope. But I'll shoot her knees out if she keeps following us." She was combing through the girl's belongings making sure that she only had the two weapons. When her search was done, she asked, "How long until you two are ready to go?"

Sun answered, "I'd like to eat something first, maybe half an hour?"

Blake said, "I'm also pretty hungry. And I'm betting you are too."

Ruby admitted, "Yeah, I am." She was beginning to calm down, and breakfast sounded like a great idea.

"What should we do with her?" Sun nodded toward the girl staring at them.

"I'll untie her when we leave." Blake said.

* * *

Close to half an hour later, they had eaten and finished packing their tents. Sun and Ruby fussed over the map and compass to make sure they knew they were going the right direction while Blake went over to the girl.

The girl had gotten back into a sitting position after being kicked over, she moved her glare from Ruby and Sun onto Blake as she walked closer.

Blake went behind her and knelt to undo the knot, "How much do you know about us?"

The girl hesitated for a moment, "Your names, what you're doing, where you're going next."

"If you know what we're doing, why didn't you try to kill us?"

"He just said to follow you and report on what you're doing."

The rope slackened and dropped, Ruby started paying more attention in case she needed to intervene. Blake took the rope and began to coil it, "How long have you been in the White Fang?"

A dubious look took hold of the girl's face, she felt there was some kind of angle to these questions but couldn't figure it out, "About five years."

"What made you join?"

"Are you trying to learn my life story?"

Blake shrugged, "Just making conversation."

It was quiet while Blake finished wrapping the last few feet of the rope around her arm.

The girl went over to her things and began to collect them, she was surprised and annoyed to see Blake's legs move into her periphery, she looked up when the woman spoke, "If you're thinking about trying to beat us to the next base to warn them-don't."

The girl fought back a sly grin and made sure to sound particularly annoyed, "You don't have to worry about that, I'm sick of this desert and you."

Blake turned around and walked back to Sun and Ruby. Ruby saw the girl look over her shoulder and a fraction of that smug grin was visible.

"What took you so long?" Sun asked.

"I wanted to talk to her for a little while." Came Blake's nonchalant answer.

"What did you talk about?" Ruby adjusted her backpack straps.

"What she knows, why she didn't attack us when we didn't know she was following us." Blake slipped her own backpack on, "Are we ready to go?" Ruby noted the change of topic.

Sun said, "I'm good to go."

Ruby said, "Me too."

"Alright, last base, let's go." Blake was saying this to herself as much as the others.

Before getting too far away Ruby looked back and saw the girl had collected most of her things and was searching for the scattered parts of her weapons.

* * *

Sun stood at the top of a dune with binoculars looking back the way they had come, Ruby asked, "Do you see her?" It had been a couple of hours since departing and they had agreed now would be a good time to see if the girl had kept following them.

"Nope. She must have decided we weren't worth the trouble."

He put the binoculars away and came down from the dune to Blake and Ruby.

Blake was relieved, and somewhat surprised, she would have bet that the girl would follow them given her attitude, "Good. Let's keep moving, we've still got a long way to go." She resumed her pace, Sun and Ruby followed behind her.

A little bit later Sun had a thought, "Hey Ruby, when you were interrogating her you said something about how we're all going to die, what was that all about? You never answered me back then."

Ruby had forgotten about that, she mentally kicked herself. She took a moment to think, "I was just trying to scare her is all." It was clearly a lie. They could remember the desperation in her voice. Sun was unsure if he should continue to press the issue or leave it. If Ruby wanted to explain then she would have, but it was hard to ignore such a morose claim.

Blake spoke up before he could come to a decision, "Sounds like it worked on Sun." She was interested in the real answer too, but Ruby didn't seem ready to share.

Even though he wasn't convinced, Sun decided to play along with Blake, "Oh, alright." The conversation petered out from there.

* * *

The gate let out a long high-pitched creak in welcome when she pushed it aside, with it out of the way she could see that there were a couple of bodies lying within reach of their weapons and framed by their long since dry blood.

Her eyes swept over the scene before her and she grimaced. There were a few buzzards picking at a corpse some hundred feet away and the rest of the bodies showed signs of scavengers as well.

When she had been given the assignment, Adam had made it clear that she was to not attack Blake or Sun under any circumstances. He was hellbent on dealing with them himself and she was only supposed to keep him up to date on their movements. The problem arose when she was present during their assassinations on the different lieutenants. Watching them be blindsided by those cowards had been awful. But they would pay soon.

The most frustrating part of her whole ordeal was the countless times she could have placed her cross-hairs on Blake and made her disappear. She had pleaded with Adam to let her do so, but he refused to see reason. When she had asked him what was so special about them he had told her of their history together and Blake's betrayal of him and the White Fang.

She pushed open the door to the communications center and took a seat at the closest terminal. She punched in a string of numbers and patiently waited for the call to go through.

She had nearly erupted in cheers when the chameleon lieutenant had been about to best Blake. But her moment of satisfaction had been cut down by the woman in red that she later learned as Ruby. That scythe wielding maniac had come out of nowhere and slaughtered so many of her comrades. When she first told Adam, his surprise at the appearance of this woman had been evident, but he made it clear that she wouldn't be an issue later on. From there she had continued to follow them as she had before.

Her call was answered by a masked White Fang member, he said, "Hey Fay."

"Hey Liam, I've got some news for Adam."

"Alright, I'll put you through." He tapped on a few keys and the screen went blue. A handful of seconds later the black clad figure of Adam Taurus filled the screen.

* * *

Hey, once again I'm gonna apologize for how long this took. I was making really good progress on it but then things started to pick up for school and soon it was time for exams. I did well on three of them but I can't say the same for calc. I'm satisfied with this chapter even though it is kind of more filler with build up too. I've been on break for a while so I managed to get it done and will get a good chunk of the next chapter done too.

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it. If you celebrate it, merry Christmas. If not, have a good day.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

After making camp for the night the three companions made an attempt at sitting together and decompressing after another day trudging through the desert, but it didn't last long. They agreed upon how exhausted they were and went to their respective tents to rest. Despite the desire to sleep, Sun found he was still uneasy about Ruby's declaration from earlier in the day and he wanted to talk to Blake about it, "What do you think she meant?" he had set his pack to the side and was taking his boots off.

Blake was in the process of taking off her jacket and said, "What?"

"When Ruby was interrogating that girl, she said everybody's going to die. I can't figure out what she was talking about? And there's no way she was lying."

Blake put her jacket down and set to unlacing her boots, "I don't know what she was talking about either, I agree that she wasn't lying. Unless you can convince her to tell you what she was talking about then you'll never know."

Blake's appraisal hadn't helped his uneasiness and saying this all out loud made her realize she didn't like not knowing either.

They continued to get ready for bed in silence, each one pondering the possible reason for Ruby's behavior. It wasn't until a few minutes had passed and they were comfortably close together that Blake recalled the night that Ruby had rescued her. During their conversation Ruby had said something- Blake couldn't remember the word itself- but she had been angered by Blake's refusal to say where Adam was, and she had yelled about someone making the White Fang attack. So much had happened since then that she wasn't surprised she had nearly forgotten about it.

Her outburst from that night and earlier today had been because someone refused to tell her where Adam was. She claimed that Adam was going to attack another school, obviously stopping that would be a priority. But how would failing to stop him put everyone in the world in danger? Blake couldn't come up with any possible answer which made her more anxious to figure out what Ruby was so afraid of.

* * *

Ruby's hair was disheveled and there was a subtle frown fixed to her face. It was morning and she was already starting to sweat from the heat. She pulled her canteen from her bag and took a sip. Once again, she found herself silently cursing the White Fang girl from yesterday. She had been so close to finding out where Adam was and hindering Salem, but some angsty bitch with a vendetta against humanity had said no. Ruby took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.

When she left her tent the full force of the suns glare hit her and she let out a groan. She went over to the bones of the fire from last night and sat down to eat. There hadn't been much conversation and she had a feeling it was because of her lie about scaring the girl. Blake was too smart to believe her, and Sun had hesitated before agreeing. She didn't feel good about keeping the possibly world ending grimm leader supervillain a secret, but Qrow had said not to tell anyone and she could see the logic in that.

Before she could resume her brooding, she heard a tent door being unzipped and turned around to see Blake, who let out a friendly, "Good morning." Ruby responded in kind while she took a seat nearby. Blake asked, "How did you sleep?"

She had gone to sleep annoyed, but it was restful enough, "Fine. No bad dreams." It was only a matter of time until the next one, but she had bigger things to worry about.

"That's good to hear. Have you given any thought to what you're going to do since you can't find Adam?"

She nodded solemnly, "Yeah. I don't know if he's going after Atlas or Shade Academy, but I'm going to guess Atlas. I'll go there to warn them and stick around for when the attack comes."

Blake fidgeted with her fingers before saying, "I could go to Shade and warn them, if you want."

Ruby gave it some consideration. It would be nice to know that both schools at least had a warning before being assaulted. But if Shade was the one to he attacked, she didn't want Blake to face Adam on her own, even if Sun went too, she still didn't like that. Blake also had no clue as to the larger threat pulling Adams strings and it wouldn't be right to send her into that mess without warning her of the danger.

Even though she had carefully mauled the question over, she answered with a noncommittal, "Maybe. Are you sure you would be okay with that?"

"Absolutely, I'm sure Sun would come too."

Ruby believed he would, but that didn't instill confidence within her, "I'll think about it some more and let you know." Given how things had gone this far she couldn't entirely rule that option out, even if it made her uneasy.

Things were quiet for a little while before Ruby said, "I already asked what you were talking to that girl about yesterday, but you didn't give me a specific answer, could you tell me now?" That interaction had seemed odd. All Blake had to do was untie her and come back, for some reason she had spent some time talking as well and Ruby wanted to know why that was.

Blake gave her a funny look, "I asked her what she knew about us and why she didn't try to stop us." When Blake didn't expound Ruby prompted her with a patient, "And…".

"She said she knew our names, what we're doing, and where we're going. I also asked her how long she'd been in the White Fang and why she joined." Blake shook her head lightly as if trying to get the memory to fall out, "I wanted to try to convince her that the White Fang was being misled. It was an impulsive decision and I realized nothing I said would matter to her."

Ruby nodded, of course Blake was just trying to help the girl, she said, "She seemed pretty certain about how things are going to go for humans and faunus."

Blake let out a sigh that couldn't fully convey her frustration, "Getting revenge on humans isn't what the White Fang should stand for."

"Just because you couldn't change one persons mind doesn't mean you can't change others." Ruby tossed a piece of cracker up into the air and tried to catch it with her mouth, it hit her forehead and Blake laughed lightly. When she recovered she said, "Yeah, I know. I'm not going to stop trying." A relaxed silence followed and Blake reveled in the comfortableness of it.

Blake didn't know when would be the best time to address this but she had been speculating on it since her possible revelation last night, and if she and Ruby were going to be friends again than she shouldn't be scared about asking her, "Since we're on the topic of clearing up confusion, what did you mean about 'us all going to die' yesterday? I know you said it was a lie to scare her, but it didn't come across that way to Sun and me."

That was probably the politest way anyone had ever accused Ruby of lying. She focused on taking another bite of her breakfast and considered how to respond. Lying hadn't worked, and she didn't like doing it. She didn't want to tell Blake and drag her into the conflict.

Ruby put a comforting hand on Blake's shoulder, "I mean this in the nicest way possible: I've got things under control. All you need to focus on is what you came here to do."

Blake eyed her questionably, "I know you're trying to stop me from worrying, but it's not working. You're afraid of something. Last night I remembered when you saved me and what you said about the White Fang attacking. You didn't say Adam would be making them do it, I don't remember the name, but you said something else was driving them. That same panic in your voice was there yesterday when you yelled at that girl." Blake looked at her with no small amount of determination, "Tell me what's going on, I can help."

For the briefest of moments, Ruby thought about it. Having an ally to fight against Salem and her forces would be nice, she hadn't had anyone to count on for years. But what if she pulled Blake into this mess only for her to be killed. She found some resolve and said, "No. Qrow and I have been able to manage on our own, I don't think it would be worth risking your life."

Blake's eyes narrowed, "I've been risking my life since I was a kid, don't think that the threat of dying is going to stop me now."

Ruby couldn't argue with the truth of that, she also had to admit that she and Qrow had only been able to hold back Salem, they had no chance to defeat her by themselves. Eventually they would need to start seeking out more people, but was now the time? Ruby didn't know what to do, she just wanted all of this to be over and to spend time with the people she cared about. While trying to pick a response she and Blake saw Sun approaching, he said, "Hey, what's going on?" He had only heard Blakes previous statement and was wondering what they were talking about.

Blake turned to answer him, "I'm trying to convince her to tell us what's going on, but she won't."

Sun sat down with them and said, "If she wanted to tell us, she would."

"But we can help her." She was a little frustrated that Sun hadn't tried to persuade Ruby too.

Sun and Blake had agreed Ruby was trying to hide something from them. And Blake had pointed out that the only way to find out was to convince her to tell the. But she would have done that by now, Sun realized that whatever she was afraid of must be a big deal and he didn't want to try to add onto the pressure of it, so he would wait until she either handled it herself or realized she needed help. "We can help her when she's ready." Not wanting to act like Ruby wasn't sitting right there, he turned to address her, "You don't want to tell us what's got you scared, that's cool. But if you change your mind remember that we're ready for whatever." He finished the sentence with a cocksure grin that would have been wiped off his face if he knew about Salem. Though the sentiment was appreciated.

Blake dropped the issue and Sun started in on his own food, soon after he realized they hadn't looked at the remaining file for the upcoming base, "Hey Blake, is your backpack in the tent?"

"Yeah, why?" She looked over at him, confused as to why he would want to know.

He stood up to get the backpack, "I remembered we haven't looked at the file for the next base yet."

When he returned, he started reading, "James Olivine, he's been in the White Fang for nine years…not seeing any crazy weapons or tragic backstory. He's been involved with a lot of behind the scenes operations, but he doesn't seem too tough."

"Can I see it?" Blake held out a hand and Sun gave it to her.

Ruby had taken out the map and was doing some quick calculations to see how far away they were, after a moment she said, "We should be there around midday tomorrow." Blake had finished looking over the file in case Sun missed anything. She put it aside and said, "I guess we should start packing up." Sun was only halfway through his food and motioned toward the rest, Blake added, "I'll get the tent, take your time."

Ruby and Blake went to their respective tents and began to deconstruct them. A short while later Sun came over to assist Blake with anything still needing to be done. It wasn't long before they were ready to get moving. The day passed by slowly, aside from stopping to eat lunch it was largely uneventful. When the time came for them to set up camp again, they did so with a bored efficiency. The day culminated in a livelier fireside chat than the previous night. Even though the uncertainty of what Ruby wasn't telling them still weighed on Blake and Sun, that didn't hinder their attitude toward her. Particularly Blake who was still rejoicing in Ruby forgiving her.

Blake had been feeling the call of her bed since she sat down, and after letting out a handful of yawns she finally admitted defeat, she arched her back and raised her arms high in a magnificent stretch, "I think I'm gonna go to sleep." Ruby and Sun bid her goodnight and she shuffled away to rest.

Ruby was expecting Sun to bring up her withholding information again, instead he said, "You excited to be done tomorrow?"

"I would be if I was actually going to be done, I've still got Adam to worry about." It was also possible that she would get to Atlas and find out she was too late.

"Oh right, well let's pretend you didn't have to worry about Adam, what would you do?" A few answers came to mind; lay on the beach for a few days, spend more time with Blake, go straight back to Patch.

She answered, "Go back to Patch to see Yang." Then added, "Did Blake tell you that I wanted her to go see Yang when this is over too?"

"Yeah, she mentioned it, she sounded pretty nervous, but like the good kind of nervous y'know?"

Ruby nodded, "Yeah, I think it will be good for both of them." An obvious question occurred to Ruby just then, "Are you going to come with her?"

"I don't know, it's not like I don't want to, but hanging out with you and Blake has me thinking about what Scarlet, Sage, and Neptune are doing. It would be nice to catch up with them. I've spent so much time working with Blake and Ilia to help get rid of the White Fang that I never stopped to think about what I wanted to do or where I wanted to be."

"I'm glad I stayed, Blake means a lot to me and I feel good knowing what I helped accomplish. But I don't know what I'm doing next." Ruby waited for him to continue, he seemed to be thinking deeply then came out of it suddenly, "Wow, I didn't mean to get so 'what's my purpose in the universe' on you."

Ruby laughed a little, "I get it, I've thought about what I'll be doing five years from now and its just me hunting grimm. I still want to hunt grimm, but not by myself for the rest of my life. It would be nice to slow down and live life, spend time with people I care about." It's too bad Salem won't take a break to let me do those things.

Sun said, "It sounds like we both just miss our teams is all." He and Ruby chuckled at their own uncertainty of the future, "Yeah, maybe that's it." Ruby agreed numbly.

* * *

It's been 114 days since I've updated this story. That's a really long time and I'm sorry. I don't have a good excuse; it comes down to me being lazy. I've also got school and other hobbies that I like to do but I know for sure that if I had been using my time wisely it would not take this long to write one chapter that's less than 3,000 words. I should also admit that somewhere in the last couple chapters I got bored of what I was writing about, the good news is this arc is nearly done and I'm interested in what comes next. I also feel that my writing has decreased in quality because of the intervals: if I write for an hour one week then an hour the next week, there isn't a whole lot of focus or attention to detail going on there. Since classes are nearly over (until summer classes start) and I have time due to quarantine I will be working on the next chapter frequently and expect to have it done in a more reasonable time frame.

Thank you for reading this story, especially if you have stuck with it even though I have demonstrated how inconsistent my updates are. As always feedback is welcome.


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